As Fates Entwine
by xThEoNex
Summary: Naruto and Killer Bee are called back from the turtle, the Shinobi alliance is in disarray, and Madara has plans and is on the move for new Akatsuki members...How are the Jinchuriki to stay safe during this time of turmoil? NaruHina M for future stuff :P
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone, just wanted to let everyone know that I probably wont be doing a ton of author notes but I wanted to lay out some stuff. But, usually with what I have seen and experience the author lets out hints and key plot points in advance. Readers become less surprised, less immersed in the story, or just unimpressed with the development of whatever is happening. I will possibly update this author note as I progress if it allows me to, with whatever happens (sorry to be bland here, but like I said, its so easy to give out spoilers that it takes away some of the immersion as the story unfolds).

Now on to some other important stuff. Please keep in mind that the first few chapters will probably be kind of boring (less action, more explaining, etc.) as I lay the groundwork and foundation. I am a true action junkie though, so have no fear, there will be plenty! This will be pretty reality based. Stuff happens, people die, people struggle, in the ninja world people have to kill or be killed, and I could go on. I hope you get where I'm going with this, I would rather not have to lay everything out. Keep this in mind as you read this fic. This fic will be based right after Naruto is returning from the turtle island in the manga, but Yamato was NOT captured but was attempted to be, and the unified alliance has not formed yet. Honestly, the joining of this alliance so quickly after the past of the ninja world being wrapped in utter chaos, distrust, multiple wars; I just don't understand how they could unify so quickly as Kishi-sama put it in the manga. I will also elaborate more on this as the story progresses. Also, elements and events of the manga may come into play but for the most part I'm going to put my twist on what happens after Naruto returns. I'll elaborate in the fic, be patient :P .

This fic will be NaruHina. Thats all on that :) .

This fic will feature Ocs , but characters all ready established by Kishi-san will remain IN character. Also, please remember there is a major difference in being out of character and character development. On to the next one.

I may be needing a beta if anyone is interested, I may try to grab my brother for my beta for the first few chapters till I maybe get some attention to the fic. Let me know what you think about the fic though, I will read every review, whether it be constructive criticism or a friendly compliment to even a horrible remark/raging comment and try to respond personally. I want my readers to feel engaged, so let me know what you think so I can make edits if need be!

This is my first fic so I'm sorry if I'm a little rough lol. I'm going to do my best though to make this as enjoyable as possible for you Naruto, and especially you NaruHina fans!


	2. Chapter 2

_DISCLAIMER: _I DO NOT own Naruto, it's characters, story, blah blah blah, you know the drill. The only thing I claim is the Ocs I create to go with the flow, you know? (haha...or not...) Anyways on with it...

* * *

_He sought it out...it only took a few milliseconds..._

Naruto exploded forward, instantly engulfed in his new chakra form. The stability was still off; the sheer amount of speed and power in this new-found form was still proving to be a hell of a challenge to control. Eyes on his target, Naruto started a blazing Shunshin to the left while the target became engulfed in a one-tailed chakra cloak.

"Yo son you know how this goes, if you don't slow your roll I'll clock your nose!", Killer Bee, known as the Hachibi Jinchuriki exclaimed as he dropped into a defensive stance.

The spectators consisting of Yamato, Motoi, Gai (absent from the world as his muscles were recovering from his fight with Kisame, a legendary swordsmen of Hidden Mist), and Aoba all dropped there heads save for Gai and sighed at the obviously ill constructed rhyme. As a ear-splitting crash rang out in the arena from the side furthest from them, everyone instantly looked back up.

Naruto had managed to lodge his arm all the way up to the elbow inside the dense arena wall. Bee was in convulsions of crying laughter while Yamato went white-eyed, quickly breaking into a sprint towards Naruto.

"Bee-sama, tell him how to control it!", Yamato shouted all the while trying to dislodge Naruto from the wall.

Bee manged a few more chuckles before getting up and making his way towards Naruto and Yamato.

"That is one of the only things I can't teach you, but I can help you by going over some of the excercises that helped me get into a working harmony with the Hachibi's power."

Naruto yanked one last time and he was freed. "Theres no time for that, I have to get this training done as fast as I can. I need to show everyone that I can take on the Akatsuki and Sasuke without having them worry!" Naruto rounded on Bee and immediately lit up with the Kyuubi's controlled chakra.

Killer Bee put his hand out in a stopping motion with a more serious look on his face. "You don't understand little yellow haired dude, the power you have gained is much more then it looks on the surface." At a skeptical look from Naruto, Bee continued on, "The power you have, if out of control, can do much more damage then it could ever help if used prematurely. Look at how you made this dent in this arena." At this Bee pointed with his thumb sideways to the dent in the wall.

Then, remembering what Bee had said before about the arena being built for the sole purpose to hold any tailed beasts that rejects or escapes it's host, Naruto frowned. Naruto thought of his friends, of when he accidentally hurt Sakura, of when he went beserk after Hinata was put down by Pein...no...he wouldn't do it again. Eyes brimming with determination, Naruto gave a small smile.

"Your right Bee-san, but, how long did it take for you to gain control of the Hachibi's power?"

Bee rubbed his chin, before counting on his fingers, at which everyone instantly sighed as a single sweat drop fell from each of their foreheads.

"Well, somewhere around 10-11 years im thinking.", scratching his chin absentmindedly.

Naruto's mouth dropped, and upon registering the words he whimpered. "Thats way to long, I don't have that kind of time!"

Bee assumed the position of a crane, draping his hands out wide while standing on one leg.

"Don't fret over the small stuff youngin, for I got the remedy and..."

Bee looked to each member of their small crew before scratching his head thinking of a word that could fit his rhyme only to find everyone turning to leave as Naruto yelled about being hungry.

Naruto could just smell Ichiruka's ramen. His mind floated to the the mouth watering food that had captivated his appetite for the past16 years.

_Jeez it had been so long! Maybe when I get back, I'll order one of everything on the menu, I even heard that they were suppose to have this new flav..._

Naruto's was brought out of his food savoring expeditions as the whole world seemed to defy gravity, and then, almost immediately it was back again.

As Naruto stabillized he looked to Bee and the others, while a dull yawning sequence of noises that almost seemed to be coming from all around the arena they were still in bounced off the walls.

Bee nodded while he seemed to be in deep though, staring off in the direction furthest from their current position.

"Looks like we are being called back fellas!"

* * *

_4 hours prior...somewhere in the Land of Lightning..._

The Kages had been in great disagreement, discussion, and raging for lack of a better term, at the newly acquired intel that the enemy seemed to possess. Somehow the Akatsuki, or what remained of it, had found the roaming turtle and were planning on making a move soon to aquire the currently unaware Jinchuriki. The imposing and towering figure of the Raikage slammed the one hand he still had into his portion of the circular, marble counter, resulting in the breaking of the marble where he stood and the inevitable raising of voices save one. The red head closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He stood and began to speak.

"Look."

The Godaime Kazekage, and previous Jinchuriki glared at the other Kages in disappointment. He waited till he had everyone's attention.

"Lets take a step by allowing an unbiased opinion to present itself." Gaara looked over to the leader of the Tetsu no Kuni (Land of Iron) region.

"He has not known a Jinchuriki, never been a Jinchuriki, and has only recently been introduced to Madara Uchiha. Tell us your thoughts on all this intel, while keeping in mind with where we stand, what we have, and what we know about the enemy's current agenda."

Gaara took his seat again while keeping an eye on all of the kages reactions, Tsunade and A's reactions most notably. All the Kages nodded, save Tsunade who gave out an audible huff. The leader of Tetsu no Kuni stood, ready to address the congregation.

"Given what we know, its pretty safe to say the Jinchuriki are in danger. I would suggest that we bring them back here and reloca..."

And that was as far as Mifune got, as the beautiful Godaime Mizukage stood, while at the same time across the table the elderly Sandaime Tsuchikage climbed to stand in his chair so he could be seen.

"WHAT!" they both exclaimed at the same time.

"Are you kidding me!", the Tsuchikage protested, "If we move them now they will be most vulnerable, we have to put them further out of reach! We have to have the turtle seek greater distance from the mainland."

Gaara folded his arms in front of him and put his head down on the table, The Raikage took a swing and a miss at the still open air space in front of him where the marble used to be, Tsunade stood while pointing and rampaging about how the Tsuchikage knew nothing about what Jinchuriki felt like , the Mizukage turned on Tsunade with something about emotions running high, and Mifune just took his seat again.

The continual raising of voices led on until the kage's body guards starting voicing their opinions, resulting in an uproar that would not be calmed for another hour or so. Kakashi, standing behind Tsunade looked over at Shikaku, who shrugged lazily and threw his hands up and head back to relax. Kakashi, on the other hand, pulled out the one thing that seemed to put him in paradise, his one and only treasured item that could clear the clouds on a rainy day. That was the one and only last installment of the Icha Icha Paradise series.

_3 hours later..._

The Kages all slouched back in their chairs, clearly trying to regain their breath, save one. The Kazekage just stared, straight ahead with arms crossed.

"Are you all done with your pointless bickering?"

Everyone turned to face the youngest Kage they had ever known, not with glares, but lazy glances. They had been in here for who knows how long, and all they could think about was different directions to take in handling the business with the holders of the two remaining tailed beasts. The very beasts that Madara needed in order to put the world in a complete state of hypnosis with genjutsu.

"Regardless of your feeling of distrust for one another or your complete disregard of any other opinions, something must be done. If we do not make a move soon, Madara will take advantage of our delayed communication and cooperation in an attempt to seize Naruto-san and Bee-sama."

At this, they all turned to look at one another for several moments. The looks were not with animosity, but with curiosity. Each was looking for someone to voice their opinions, when the least likely candidate spoke words that no one would think they would hear in this lifetime or the next. The Tsuchikage spoke in a quiet voice where everyone had to strain to hear.

"Bring them back to the mainlands, until then we protect them till we find an alternate route. One we can all agree on. There is no way that Madara would plan a straight out attack on a single village with the kind of numbers that we have."

Mifune stood up to address everyone.

"Are we at least in agreement on that?"

At all the nods, and Tsunade letting a worried look take her off into protective thoughts about Naruto, everyone stood up and exited the room without saying another word. That tiny agreement had simply taken too much out of everyone present, evident in the muffled yawns and dreary sighs.

* * *

_Later that night, Raikage's quarters, Land of Iron..._

A knock came to the door.

"Raikage-sama, are you still awake sir?"

The Raikage was off, distant in thought about his brother and what to do concerning his protection. Pausing mid thought while making a lazy glance upwards towards the door. _Who could be coming around at this hour...?_

"Who is it?", the Raikage called back.

The anbu replied with an alert voice, "The Hokage of Konoha."

Startled slightly at why in the world she would be here of all places, especially after the fiasco that they called a Kage meeting, he drifted off into thought momentarily. While the Raikage and Hokage shared many similar views, possibly because of the similar relations towards the Jinchuriki of their respective villages, they also butted heads multiple times when it came to military action and discipline. Throwing those thoughts to the side for later dwelling, the Raikage gave the ok for the Hokage to come in as the Anbu guarding the residence allowed for the Legendary Slug Sannin to pass through. The Anbu made a move to stay on the inside of the door in order to oversee the peace of the impending discussion.

"That won't be necessary." the Raikage blantly declared.

"Hai, Raikage-sama.", and with a salute, exited the room.

The Raikage motioned to the seat in front of his newly constructed, supposedly indestructible desk. As the Hokage sat down while placing her hands in her lap, she looked...worried...and slightly rosy-cheeked...

"To what do I owe this honor Tsunade?"

After pausing for a few moments, Tsunade looked up,"A...what is your brother like?" Tsunade asked, still looking slightly distraught.

Taken aback for a second, A reeled for an answer. While it was true that they are brothers, they really were not all that close save for a few moments caught in battle against one another. The kind of connection that stems from two great fighters facing one another in combat, as well as being side by side against a common enemy.

"A very unusual question Tsunade but before I answer, why does this interest you?"

Tsunade replied, finally looking up to met the Raikage's gaze with worried eyes, "Throughout the years I have lost many people that I have held dear to me. The burden I carry around by still remaining here in this world is enough for me to consistently be willing to give in and step down, to leave this life behind."

"While I hold more then my fair share of regrets there is one reason why I can never give up, at least until things fall into place. Naruto revolutionized my life, he brought back life into this broken body." She sighed but continued on, worried expressions turning more determined.

"That knucklehead has brought back meaning to my existence, and the bond I share with him helps me at least feel like I have done something right, something worth fighting for aside from the Village Hidden the Leaves." She unfolded her hands and gripped her knees, turning her knuckles white.

"A, you have to help me, I don't want Naruto to get captured. You know what it feels like, to have your kin, your family, ripped from your grasp. I don't want to have the pain of going through that. I need a way to help alleviate my worry for this boy and his future." Tears swelled up in Tsunade's eyes, threatening to leak out at the slightest movement from her body.

A sighed, locking his eyes with Tsunade's, "I know what you speak of Tsunade, the pain and worry that came from knowing that my brother may die was unbearable. While we may have never gotten as to what you would call close to one another, we certainly understand each other through combat."

The Raikage knew what he could offer, but it was something he wanted to request for his own brother. This woman, the very woman he had been arguing with merely hours ago had come to him for help.

(Flashback)

The Kages were in disarray. After the ordeal with Sasuke attacking the Kage summit, and Danzou's hidden agenda finding surface, the Kages agreed to still work on the alliance, but only agree to have a cease-fire and military stand down from the borders of their respective countries to imply that there will not be an attack, at least until everything was resolved between the great nations. The steady presence and use of the Akatsuki, the arming and recruiting of ninja during peace times, and old rivalries could not be settled this early. Many of them knew this, but the fact that they were willing to work on this gave hope to those that wanted this treaty to happen.

Tsunade had then woken up, and while things were certainly getting better, progress was creeping. Arguments still rained heavy, insults cast ignorantly, and consistent reminders of the past kept finding a way to delay their progress. The Raikage was always suspicious of Gaara. To have a man this quiet and this young be made a Kage, something had to be going on with him. The Tsuchikage was old and held grudges, and maybe it was just his unwillingness to see a different point a view that just ticked the Raikage off. The Mizukage was another story, her body language and mannerisms just screamed this woman was used to getting what she wanted. One of those people who just couldn't take no for an answer. Then there was Tsunade...

(End of Flashback)

Yet...he could sympathize with her.

He thought about the pain that this woman was going through though, and he knew immediately what he was going to do. "Tsunade, there is one thing you can do."

Tsunade's facial features relaxed, "Please tell me, there is nothing in the world that I won't do for this boy...", she trailed off.

"There is a man, one they say that is a mercenary, a bounty hunter, and even a guardian. Not much is known about him save for bits and pieces that people could gather on him while working with him. Sources have it that he has never failed a mission, let alone let anyone die while they were present around him. They call him the "Midnight Smoke", though I'm not sure why. To be honest I am not sure on how to even contact this man, other then that he finds you if your looking for him. I also don't factor cost as an issue here, because the man is suppose to be extremely expensive to hire."

Tsunade looked at him quizzically, "Of course money is no issue here.I have heard and know of many guardians and protectors though, A, what makes this one so special that I should entrust him with the life of the one that I hold above all else?"

The Raikage popped a wry smile, pulled out a sake bottle, "Have you ever heard about the Defence of Port Nevermore?"

As Tsunade shook her head, the Raikage brought out two small cups and filled them with sake as he began. "It all started back up in Snow Country, you wouldn't believe the drama the governors up there..."

* * *

_3 miles off the coast of Lightning Country, roaming sea turtle..._

"MUSH, ONWARDS! LETS KICK THE SPEED UP A NOTCH!"

Naruto sat cross legged on top of the giant turtle's head, glare intensifying by the second as the coast of the Lightning Country began to come closer. As he yelled, Naruto was nudged by the small turtle laying down beside him. Naruto looked down, to see it open and close its mouth, making a dull clicking sound. As Naruto stuck his tongue out at the smaller turtle, Yamato slapped a palm to his forehead. The rest of the group were a standing just a few feet behind Naruto.

"Naruto you shouldn't be so disrespectful, that turtle was the one that delivered the message for us to return, you should be thanking it."

"Yeah yeah, but still I'm ready to be back home!" Naruto exclaimed while throwing both of his hands up into the air. Yamato turned around to everyone mumbling, "Yeah, as do we all."

After about 10 minutes, the turtle finally came within a docking distance of the coast, close enough just to lay its head down on some very sturdy, newly constructed docks. As everyone disembarked from the turtle, Bee turned around, "Right on my good friend." addressing the turtle. The turtle let out audible moans and noises as it retracted from the docks and submerged itself again, trekking out into deeper water.

The welcoming crew it looked like was kept to a minimum to avoid any attention. The Kages wanted this keep this as much secret as possible since no one truly knew who they could trust or if spies were all ready stationed close by courtesy of Madara. All the Kages were in attendance, as was their respective envoys. Everyone nodded save Naruto, who ran up to Tsunade and was about to give her the usual greeting before she firmly slapped her hand onto his mouth before he could utter a word. The Raikage motioned over to a marina set up close to the water.

"We will talk there. My men have secured the perimeter." keeping it simple so they can get a move on before they were noticed, not that a giant turtle docking wasn't suspicious and five of the possibly most known and powerful people were clearly out in the open.

As they arrived, Kumo shinobi permitted everyone through, and a long rectangular table with chairs were presented. As everyone took their respective seats and the newly retrieved shinobi were standing behind their respective Kage, the Raikage opened up.

"We can't spend much time here, we have villages to run and things to organize before any more advancements can be taken towards opposing the enemy we now face." Looking around for confirmations from the other Kages, he continued, "Lets hope that we can get things together so we can all oppose our enemy from the same front. That being said, I bid everyone farewell."

Everyone stood up and filed out of the room, save for the Hokage and her escort. As she stood, she requested that her envoy leave the room. The Raikage took the hint and had everyone else exit the room. As Tsunade closed the gap to A, she could feel it. It was hope...

"Our villages have a pretty troubled past, sometimes I wonder how things didn't get worse between our nations then they actually did." At this the Raikage frowned slightly, but let the Hokage continue on. "But, we are not our past, but our future. What you told me the other night has given me hope in that I can protect him, and the rest of his friends and the village as well. A, hope has been a distant thought for me for a long time now, an embodiment of an emotion that I once thought ceased to exist in my life."

"If I ever get a hold of him, we may win this thing just yet...", as Tsunade trailed off, looking out of the window as the very sunflower yellow haired boy that was the topic of their conversation. The Raikage brought up a hand, hesistantly at first, but placed it reassuringly on Tsunade's shoulder.

"No doubt we can, its just a matter of getting everyone on the same side. Only time will tell though, so lets see what it will bring us", slightly tugging on Tsunade's shoulder to come with outside the marina. As they arrived outside, Naruto rounded and gave her that big trademark smile of his.

"Hey, Baa-Chan, lets get moving! We need to get to Ichiraku's as fast as possible!"

At this, she couldn't help but smile. She turned to the Raikage, and placed a hand out in front of her. "To the future", as she brought her gaze up to meet his.

"Yes...to the future", the Raikage replied back while firmly shaking Tsunade's hand.

* * *

_Unknown location..._

"Ahhh...I see...so this is why you are so confident", a hissing voice came from a heavily shadowed entrance into a huge room.

"Honestly, do you take me for a fool, thinking I would initiate a war without an army?", silence following the second voice allowed him to continue. "Still though, its not enough, while there are many of them, they do not really specialize in anything. So it will be a while before I can bring them into motion."

The first voice bit back, with the same hissing tone creeping into his voice, "I see, so how long do you have and what are your plans till then?"

The shadows revealed a turn of a head from one of the cloaked figures, and brought his orange, swirling mask to bear on the other cloaked member. As the other met the masked man's glare, he saw a swirl in the eye portion of the mask, a Sharingan blazing to life. The masked man seemed to study the other for sometime before turning back to the mass of shadows in the room in front of them.

"The Zetsus will take around 4-5 months, but it could be shortened depending on what I find on my rounds. The info we got back from Kisame concerning the remaining Jinchuriki's locations is useful, but I all ready planted false evidence that we were getting ready to make a move on the island." Before the other man in attendance could ask a question, the masked man continued on, "Not to worry though, I plan on returning some strength to the _living_ Akatsuki, and you will help me as well as Sasuke. While I'm not sure what his feelings will be on having you on board, you stay clear of him or I will see to it that you never see sunlight again."

The other figure let the threat hang in the air for a tad longer, then gave a small chuckle, "Very well, but what do I get in return? I'm not going to just up and do this because you merely _think_ your even the slightly bigger predator here.". The cloaked figure made a sound almost like he was licking his lips. The masked man turn to glare with his Sharingan, analyzing every bit of what the other said.

"When I'm done with him, he is all yours to conduct your research or for whatever sick ideas you retain in that sick mind of yours, Kabuto."

Kabuto paused, thinking immensely about what he was about to commit to. While he could take on his own agenda with Sasuke, this would be a sure fire way to gain Sasuke while proving that this man could trust him.

"Very well, Madara, I'm in."

* * *

_Konoha..._

She looked out over the reconstruction from an overseeing cliffside. Her knees were tucked in towards her stomach, arms around her legs. The only thoughts that went in and out of her mind were of a young yellow haired man, the one she had idolized since before she could remember.

Her lavender eyes glazed over in deep though, she muttered the man's name that she could not quit thinking of...

"Naruto-kun..."

**AN**: Well, how was it! I tried to give a brief intro where things are heading. I know this was kind of bland, but don't fear, I am really gonna kick things up soon! Lemme know how I did, would greatly appreciate reviews of all kinds. I really need to know what I do well at, what I need work on, and what all you think of the slightly different direction im taking with Naruto. Also, ill probably through up some polls concerning pairings you may be interested in. While I have a large plot summary, I'm interested in where everyone stands on certain pairings. This story will more then likely contain a large character base, but will always star around our favorite knucklehead ninja. There is just a ton of good characters out there that Kishi-sama has failed to elaborate on so I kind of want to hear about your favorites, your favorite pairings, and the like.


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer:blah blah, I don't own Naruto, you know...but I do own the Ocs..._

Also, unless otherwise noted in the story, _italics _indicate thought or inner monologue unless at the beginning of a scene change.

* * *

_Konoha..._

"...Naruto-kun..."

The raven haired Byakugan user sighed for what must have been the 100th time that day while thinking about HIM. Ever since that day, that moment, when she laid it all on the line for him...took the plunge only to be put the closest to death she has ever been. But, was it worth it?

She was uncertain. Hinata kept thinking about the moment over and over again, only to dwell on the things people told her about when she was unconscious. She had been told that Naruto's anger at seeing her die triggered the Kyuubi's transformation. A transformation that went to an unprecedented Kyuubi look-a-like. How was she suppose to feel about that...?

On one side she was a mixture of sadness and gratitude, that he would go to such lengths even subconsciously to protect her. That meant that he had to care for her...right? On the other side though, did he really do it for her, or was he that pushed for power that he would give in to something sinister so he could win the fight, for whom at that point it was uncertain. He had surely been through a lot lately, Jiraiya's death, the village being obliterated, and the list went on. Could he have done it for any of those reasons? She kept asking the question over and over again, unsatisfied with everything she could come up with.

Naruto also kept on leaving before she had ever received time to talk to him about her confession, but what kind of bothered her was that he never sought her out specifically before leaving, which also left her kind of empty. Deciding that worrying about it would only make her feel worse, she got up and went back down to help with anything the villagers or other ninja may need help with. She passed Sakura on the way past the new hospital. Her thoughts drifted to Sakura's impact on Naruto, on how determined he seemed to be concerning his promise and obsession with satisfying her...no...now was not the time for this. Hinata continued on before stopping at a newly, almost complete Ichiraku's ramen stand. She smiled, and thought that at least when Naruto returns he could enjoy the meal that he enjoyed most. Hinata walked in, greeting Ayame before asking if there was anything she could do to help.

* * *

_Yu no Kuni border, Konoha envoy..._

"Naruto I don't care what you say, normal people set up camp when it turns dark outside. And what I say goes, no buts!"

Clearly the buxom blonde was not to be moved on her decision for the envoy to set up camp for the night. Naruto persisted that the envoy get back as soon as possible.

"Ohhhhh come on! I'm full to the core with energy, lets keep going!", Naruto replied, hoping to have his request granted. Tsunade glared him down, fiercer then ever before. Again she was not to be budged so Naruto squinted up his eyes and pouted, then turned on his heel and marched away.

After Tsunade issued everyone their jobs, she went back to her rather spacious tent to do a bit of thinking. How in the blue blazes was she suppose to tell Naruto he would be basically babysat by a ninja to prevent him from harm? There was no simple way to put it, Naruto would just rage around, saying he could fend for himself and his precious people. Tsunade saw the reality of the situation though as many did concerning the recent turn of events surrounding Madara. There were just so many things in this world that she could never understand, and many of those things were evil. Sighing heavily and beginning to pull out the pocket size sake bottle from her coat pocket, and idea donned on her.

"Kakashi?"

A voice on the other side of the tent coming from behind her grumbled something about always being interrupted before he could finish the good parts in his book.

"I'm sorry, what was that?", the tone much stronger, hinting pain if her request was denied. A quick, "Hai, Tsunade-sama?" could be heard in a new found heartened voice.

"I swear, the old pervert should never have...anyways go fetch Naruto for me, you will need to stay as well for what I have to say."

A swirl of leaves could be heard as Kakashi left. A few minutes later Kakashi returned, Naruto in tow still scowling at her. Tsunade brought her hands up, snapping out hand seals quicker then the eye could follow as the room became covered in a sound proof barrier. Kakashi knew immediately that this was going to be extremely important.

"Naruto, Kakashi, what I am about to talk to you about never leaves this room, and is considered an S-rank secret." She paused, looking for a reaction. Naruto, scowl gone, looked at her quizzically. Kakashi nodded, his visable eye indicating that he understood. She continued on.

"Currently our Chunin and newer Jounin are in need of training in order to become more efficient for the times ahead. It seems inevitable that war is going to quickly spread as soon as Madara is ready with his plans, and possibly even sooner then that if other minor countries are not willing to align themselves with one another to confront the enemy."

"We are currently stretched very thin, with the last attack on our village...", she paused, currently disturbed and still upset at the recent attack on Konoha, evident from the shaking and change in tone. Gathering her bearings once again she continued on, "...we are lacking in military. While I could assign the higher ranked Jonin to the job, they are greatly needed in other situations. That is where I have come up with a solution, but currently it is not guaranteed to work." Looking to the pair standing in front of her for indications that they understood before moving on, Naruto piped up.

"Baa-chan why am I here? I know your not offering me the job. Can I leav..." He never got to finish as the glare he received from Tsunade clearly showed that she was not finished with the explanation. Naruto quickly closed his mouth, as Kakashi chuckled lightly before Tsunade rounded on him too, silencing him in the process. She put her forearms on the make shift table before leaning forward to continue on...

"I'm looking for someone they say can fill the bill, but the only problem is he is extremely hard to get a hold of. From what I could gather, as the information on this individual is almost non-existent, the ninja is a missing nin from Mizu no Kuni (Water country). Basically..."

"If the Mizukage received word of Konoha housing a missing nin from their country, things could really get out of hand", Kakashi explained finishing her thought. Kakashi brought his hand up to his masked chin before asking the obvious. "Why him?"

"He has never failed to complete a task as long as he was given full information concerning his task, and he is suppose to be one hell of an elemental ninjutsu user. Plus, we could use the extra protection since we are currently at an extremely vulnerable point." Tsunade explained, hoping Kakashi would go for it. Kakashi eyed her interrogatively for several long moments. He sighed before giving in, but obviously not fully convinced.

"I still don't know what the hell I'm here?" Naruto butted in. "_I mean seriously, what in the world does any of this have to do with me, I'm pretty sure im as powerful as..."_

Naruto was interrupted from his thoughts as Tsunade brought on the next part, again hoping that the boy would be convinced. "Naruto, if I manage to snag a hold on this missing nin he will stay with you since you have the space and..."

"NANI! WHY ME!", the young shinobi replied with disapproval.

"Oh come on Naruto, it can't be all that bad."

The voice reinforcing her idea came from the most unexpected source.

Tsunade rounded on him, clearly confused. Kakashi gave her his casual eye smile before moving back to his previous statement.

"Naruto obviously the Hokage is entrusting you with an important task, one if not kept could cause many problems between two great nations. She is placing a great deal of trust in you."

Quickly readjusting to the situation, she decided to run with it. "Precisely, and I think it would be good for you. He is suppose to be pretty strong."

Naruto instantly thought of the great training and sparring possibilities that could result from this situation. _"I may even be able to try that jutsu if this mystery shinobi proves to be as good as baa-chan thinks he is."_

"Fine."

A relieved Tsunade began again quickly as she didn't want any extra thought being constructed over this idea from the two in front of her, "Thank you. Now, everything is still iffy. I still need to find this man, and he still has to accept. I'm pretty sure he will accept but if he does not, then we will have to find an...alternate plan. I will let the both of you know the moment I gain any intel on the subject. Dismissed."

Naruto quickly rounded and left, waving goodbye over his shoulder as he went. Kakashi on the other hand was firmly planted in place with his hands in his pockets.

"I have a feeling I know what you are up to, but none the less I want the same thing. I know I probably won't be around too much to help out much with him, so in a way I feel like your alleviating my concerns as well. One request though if I may add?" Reeling from shock of being found out so easily, she quickly tried to brush her shock to the side. But this was Kakashi she was talking about."Sure, name it."

"If you find him, I test him first to make sure he can handle it. I know more then anyone what Naruto is capable of. I've talked with Aoba and Yamato as well and they have informed me of his new found powers."

The Hokage took no time in responding as this would help her as well...

"Agreed."

* * *

_Ishi no Kuni (Hidden Stones Country)..._

One masked man with a gunbai and a hooded figure approached a man half hidden by a shadow cast from the overhanging crag. From what could be seen this hidden man looked to have an almost hard, scaly skin type. As the others approached, a deep throaty voice stirred into motion.

"What are you here for?" The hidden man stood up while monitoring the approaching mysterious duo.

"Thought we would check out the lovely sights this place had to offer, must say I'm quite impressed" a bored Kabuto commented. Madara and Kabuto stopped about 20 feet from their target.

"How about you tell me before I decide to wipe the floor with your a"

"Now, that would be unfortunate", not letting the hidden man follow up on his threat. "I am here to recruit you for something that is about to encompass every point on this continent. I just thought I would give you a chance to join up with the side who will emerge victorious." The hidden man walked out from the shadow, giving the pair a clear view of his appearance. He was around seven feet tall with scaly, rock-defined skin that appeared to cover his entire being. He had dark hair and dark eyes. In his left hand he wielded what looked like an archaic form of a extra large tomahawk. Only this tomahawk had inscriptions on the head which was mode of stone. Madara knew better though, he would not judge this man based on appearances.

"Yeah, huh...well what makes you think that I would ever join ya?", throwing the tomahawk onto his shoulder, while squatting on his haunches and placing his other hand on the ground.

Kabuto slipped his hands out of the sleeves of his cloak so that they were visable. As he prepared for an attack, Madara replied back.

"Because if you do, I will turn you back the way you were before it all happened." Kabuto was obviously confused as he stole a glance at Madara but that was all the other man needed to make his move.

With no hand seals and the same calm,throaty voice the man simply charged his hand with chakra.

"Doton: Stone Pyramid Imprisonment."

Rocks and earth shot out of the ground in the shape of a traingle before tilting to angle and meet at a single focal point, constructing a pyramid. Kabuto was impressed but this was child's play. His hand blazed blue-green and went to plunge it into the stony-earth composition of the pyramid. Only instead of his hand shattering the substance, he nearly shattered his hand in the process as the stone repelled his attack. Kabuto quickly changed strategies.

"Edo-tensei."

A coffin shot out of the ground from in front of the pyramid holding Kabuto. The coffin door disappeared with a puff of smoke and a taller then average figure walked out.

"Kabuto...why the hell am I here?", the voice coming from the now emerging figure. He looked around for Kabuto but he was nowhere to be seen.

"In here Kakuzu, get me out."

Chuckling lightly, Kakuzu turned around and performed numerous handseals.

"Raiton: False Darkness." A bull-like mask emerged from his back and shot a bolt of intensified lightning in the shape of a spear towards the pyramid. The pyramid resisted slightly but ended up caving in towards the inside. Kabuto stepped outside, readjusting his glasses.

"Now we are even for you repairing some of my hearts."

"Whatever", but Kabuto redirected his attention back towards his new found foe. In the span of a second Kakuzu was upon the stony skinned fiend with his mind now only interpreting one command: to kill this man.

"Raiton: Wracking Volt!" Three bright purple streaks of lightning burst from the bull mask on his shoulder. Kakuzu began to close the distance between himself and the man as soon as the justsu was started. The stone defined figure quickly ran through numerous handseals before dropping his tomahawk, placing one hand on the ground and one towards the sky...

"Mineral release: Dimagnetic Push!" The lightning immediately bent back and reversed direction. Kakuzu tried to slow his momentum but it was all ready to late. Beamed by the blast, his body as if it was shattering due to the immedate change in direction and voltage stemming from the brilliant purple beams pushing him backwards. Kakuzu stopped when he finally hit a rock wall roughly thirty yards from where he connected with the jutsu. _Bleh, this guy is tough, if he can repel that and use Doton then ninjutsu may render ineffective, my chance will come in taijutsu..._

Kakuzu got up, allowing for the emerging bull and tiger mask to take a shoulder each but minimizing the amount of space they took up. He made it so they were as small a target as possible, and it made him look like he simply had three heads. Kakuzu also disconnected his joints at the elbows and knees revealing dark grey tendrils. With a quick series of shunshins Kakuzu was taken to a mere foot of the front of his enemy in the blink of an eye. Kakuzu got into crouch and put a straight, hard jab directly up and into the chin of the offender. The punch seemed to have no effect and the man lashed out with the tomahawk in an overhead smash at a speed far to fast to be humanly possible. The tomahawk missed and plunged into the ground, writing on the head lighting up.

Kakuzu dove through the mans open legs headfirst and twisted his body midway through so he had eyes on the mans back. The skin was far smoother and less rocky. Now was his chance. He extended his legs towards the back of the mans knees causing the man to collapse. He quickly went through a series of handseals and prepared the attack with his tiger and bull masks.

"Combination release: Infernal energy wa-", but was silenced as a jetstream of water tore out of the ground and through his chest. The other two heards in his body were instantly shattered, only leaving the two sitting on his shoulders. Kakuzu went into a series of coughs and gurgling before a shadow rose behind him.

"Huhuhu, should have quit while you were ahead", as the mysterious man stood and turned to tower over the now incapacitated Kakuzu, "cuz now...its party time"

Madara was observing from a fair distance away and was making sure to steer clear of the fight. He watched as a giant pillar of water emerged from the ground a second time, only this time it encased Kakuzu's entire being. While he did not understand the mechanics of the tomahawk, he could take in and understand what was going on with the mysterious man's body composition.

"Ahhh...now I see, the jutsu is a perfect defense for the weakness...and his skin must be made of the same material. He would be extremely useful. But his weakness lies in-", trailing off as his Sharingan attempted to analyze the substance Kabuto was encased in. The earth around him began to rumble. Locking his Sharingan onto the rocky figure, he allowed his other eye to awaken. Geysers starting to rocket skyward from the ground underneath him. Where stony-skinned giant stood went through a few single handed seals before placing the hand on the ground, eyes locking back onto Kabuto about twenty yards away now.

"Miner-" was all that came out of his mouth before he felt a massive killer intent spike into existence behind him.

"Now now, lets play nice. I would hate to see you die before anything has even started", Madara's tone deadly serious. As the stony man turned to face a mask looming directy over his shoulder, he looked into the other eye socket. The shock on his face was clearly evident, even dropping the tomahawk he wielded as full blown terror took over.

"B-B-But, how?" was all the man could stutter out, looking wide eyed at the infamous Sharingan and a mysterious eye with multiple violet rings behind the mask.

"Simple, I'm Madara Uchiha. The next ruler of this world." Madara replied in a matter of fact voice.

The rocky-scaled man was paralyzed. _What was it about this man's eyes, why have I never felt afraid or scared till this very moment? I feel like the life has been drained from me..._

"I-I-I-", stumbling on his words, "...will follow you, Madara Uchiha. Tamotsu is at your service."

Madara immediately changed his tone and backed off while putting his hand on Tamotsu's shoulder. "Excellent! Now, lets go take a visit to the Damiyou of Shimo no Kuno (Frost Country). I believe we have other allies to make. "

Kabuto ignored Madara's rant and walked over to Tamotsu and Madara. All that remained of the once moving Kakuzu were a few tendrils and half of the tiger mask. He picked up what was left of the tiger mask and sighed.

"Great...just great..."

* * *

_Konoha, medical facilities reconstruction area..._

A certain pink haired kunoichi was finishing up with assigning tasks to both nurses and equipment delivery hired help. So far it had been a tiring morning, or more like a tiring past few days. All she had done was consistent busy work in Tsunade's stead since Tsunade was off again at a Kage meeting. While it wasn't all bad since Shizune took the main reigns behind the effort, the main reason for helping so much was to keep her mind off of recent events.

_Sasuke forced the kunai out of her hand and into his. He looked at her, with nothing but malevolent intent. He brought the kunai around, preparing to end her life right here..._

_After opening her eyes again she saw yellow hair. Everything after that became one giant blur of emotions, disagreements, and a constant killer intent from the one man that she thought she had loved long ago...so long ago...then the final line came before everything was muted after that fateful clash of Rasengan and Chidori.._

"_...didn't you?", Naruto said. _

"_When you and I fight..."_

"_We will both die."_

The last line had caught her so unaware. She stirred from her thoughts as her name was called from one of the nurses to be stationed on this floor.

"Sakura-san, where would you like the extra iv drips and bedding supplies?"

She smiled as she came back to the present. "_No, it's time for a new beginning..."_

* * *

_Konoha, MP (Military police) station reconstruction..._

Lavender eyes with veins visible along the sockets swept out over the giant multistory building while concentrating on the points where each level connected to the one on top of it. Mentally confirming that all connections and reinforcement points were aligned, the young man's eyes scrunched up in a surprised look before returning to normal and the veins disappeared. Turning to his partner, clad in possibly the most ridiculous looking green jumpsuit and chunin vest, he nodded in affirmation.

"Yosh, I will let my youthful flame burn as I make it to the superiors in fifty-five seconds with the confirmation!", the bushy eye browed youth exclaimed while going into full stretches instantly.

"Lee-san, let-", was all the young man with lavender eyes could scrape together before Lee answered back. "Forty-five seconds Neji-san?"

"No Lee-san, make su-"

"Fine Neji-san, forty seconds, no lower. YOSH!" Lee exlaimed as he became a blur moving far beyond what anyone would consider normal for a ninja's speed, bound for the other side of Konoha.

Neji put his hand on his face in obvious defeat. _"No, Lee-san, you were suppose to let them know that the Hokage's envoy is only a few minutes out from the gate."_

He glimpsed a familiar face in his peripherals coming from the direction that Lee had darted off to.

"Hey Neji-san. I just passed Lee-san, does that mean everything checks out?", the voice belonging to the girl now walking up to his side.

"Yes Tenten-san," Neji replied, "but he ran off before I could tell him that the Hokage is only a few minutes from the main gate. Want to go meet them?"

"Sure. Everything checked out at the new weapon shop Otousan (father) set up, so I have plenty of time before I have to go back to stock everything up." Tenten returned as the two set off towards the front gate of Konoha.

* * *

_Konoha training fields..._

"Getsuga!"

Two cyclonic and stampeding bursts of energy crossed in mid-air before lunging at the ground where a man with glasses and a hooded open jacket stood firm.

"Hijutsu: Insect Barrior", the figure on the ground quietly let out. Black dots emerged from the motionless figure still standing on the ground, which then moved in front to construct a wall. The spinning cyclones smashed into the bugs and slowly started to break through. Upon seeing his chance, the glasses wearing ninja jumped somersaulted straight up in the air and over the insect barrier.

"Hijutsu: Insect Sphere", he muttered as he moved a hand out in front of him as he descended onto the still spinning masses, guiding the direction for the bugs to take. The barrier broke and the bugs attempted to plunge through the spinning to seek out the flesh beneath.

The spinning slowed as repelling the bugs became harder and harder. The concealed attacker sought his opening and came down hard on one of the masses, earning a slight 'poof' from underneath him. All together the battle came to a halt as a dog was now visible, with the concealed man's fist close to the dog's face. The dog started licking his hand.

"AKAMARU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!", the brown haired man shouted, clearly upset. The masked user instantly grinned behind his coverings. He moved away from the dog, walking towards his

sparring partner.

"Kiba I wouldn't worry about it. After all you did just about make it through my insect barrier this time", he replied while giving Kiba a shrug.

"Yeah," Kiba replied while throwing his hands up in the air with his tone growing sarcastic, "and how many times did it take?"

"Sixty-one", coming from the shady figure.

"What, you mean you were actually counting Shino!"

"Well, yeah," Shino simply stating his reply.

Kiba sighed and walked over to Akamaru, who was still laying upside down.

"And, what am I going to do with you Akamaru?", clearly teasing the dog in question. Akamaru gave a loud bark before getting up and nudging Kiba with his nose. Kiba laughed and reached over to rub Akamaru behind the ears. Kiba instantly caught a familiar scent in the air and turned to address Shino.

"Well whaddya know. Looks like the Hokage is finally returning from the meeting. I'd say they are a few minutes out. Want to go see them at the gate?"

"Sure", Shino replied.

* * *

_Konoha, front gate..._

Hinata had finally found another useful job she could do, something extremely similar to what Neji had been doing with the recently built buildings. She was on the inner left side of the main gate up next to the wall, looking at the weaving patterns for the newly constructed walls. Ever since the attack the walls had been needing an upgrade so they could withstand more of an attack. This was done by reinforcing large amounts of highly concentrated chakra (usually left to be done by the Anbu) in a weaving pattern throughout the walls lining their village.

She was using her Byakugan to make sure there were no disturbances in the patterns or irregularities in the power level. She had been so enticed in her work and concentrating on the wall that she failed to notice a line of people come through the gate.

"Boy, it sure feels good to be home!", yelled someone from close to the gate. Hinata turned to look and could only focus on the voice's owner, who was fist pumping the air over his head. Hinata blushed and the world seemed to start spinning.

"_Naruto-kun is back...hes finally back!" _was all she could think, before she started becoming increasingly more light-headed. Consciousness began to slip from her control and everything faded to black.

When she came to, her fuzzy vision tightened up as she heard someone call her name.

"Hin-...ina-...inata...Hinata!", came the voice from the figure now coming into focus who was directly overhead. Yellow hair could only mean one thing. Trying to calm herself and regain her bearings, she sat up slowly. Neji, Kiba, Shino, Tenten, the Hokage, and a few others were looming around her. The Hokage was kneeling and holding her head in her lap, while Naruto could have been no more then a few inches from her face.

"Baka," the Hokage said as she brought her hand over and pushed Naruto's head away from Hinata, "give her some room to breathe."

Naruto backed away and allowed for Hinata to sit up, a blush creeping into her cheeks. _"This is the closest I have ever been to Naruto since that day...and I'm still fainting when I see him even after..."_ she thought before she heard his voice again.

"Hinata, are you ok?", concern evident in _his_ voice. Not wanting Naruto to worry, she nodded since words were far to difficult to form at the moment. She stood up with the Hokage's help while the Hokage turned to address everyone.

"Now, I need a quick run down of tasks and progress we have made while I was gone. Neji, Shino, Kiba, and Tenten follow me to the hospital and let me know what all has gotten done. Hinata can you show Naruto to the new ramen shop? I sure hope its finished, If I hear the word ramen again I'm pretty sure I'm going to..." the Hokage trailed off as she turned to walk away with everyone bring her back up to speed and Naruto yelling 'Ramen' over and over again.

Hinata smiled as a multitude of thoughts and emotions began to run wild through her mind. _"Should I bring up that day? How would he feel? Is it to soon to be talking about that stuff? What if he doesn't remember..."_

She felt a tug on her arm and looked up to into a pair of deep blue eyes. "Can we go ahead to Ichiraku's? I feel like I haven't eaten in years!"

She nodded and began to move towards where the new ramen stand was located. _"No, I'm perfectly content with this, just being able to spend time with him. And, he seems to have already forgotten...maybe another time..." _as she ran to keep up with the eager and greatly hungry Naruto, who was now running ahead in the totally opposite direction of the newly built ramen stand. She called after him while trying to suppress her never ending giggling.

* * *

_Shimo No Kuni (Frost Country), North-eastern coastal region..._

A figure stood overlooking the ocean from an outcropping on a mountain side as the sun started its decent past the horizon. He was clad in a sleeveless steel colored haori and midnight blue long sleeve shirt/pants combination. A fluttering of wings could be heard over the light snowfall and the figure turned to acknowledge the noise. A snow owl arrived and landed upon a branch of a nearby tree with a small scroll attached to it's leg.

The figure walked over and detached the scroll. He proceeded to reach into a hip pouch and pull something out, presenting it to the owl before the owl greedily snapped at the substance and swallowed it whole. The mysterious person reached out to pet the owl as he unclipped and opened the scroll with his other hand. As he read, he couldn't help but smirk.

"_The Hidden Leaf huh? Well that is definitely something new. What could she want with a person like me? And whats with this insane offer? This would be a great risk I'd be taking...", _he thought silently as he glanced back off to where the sun had set. _"I bet the girls look pretty good...hmmmmmm. I may be able to make it in two days, IF I go..."_ Darkness had crept in and shadows had been cast around the vicinity from the over abundance of trees that populated this region of the Frost Country.

"Go on now, and give _them_ my thanks Kojo", the man said through a slightly deep but gentle voice. The owl hooted happily before dispersing in a puff of smoke. The man pocketed the scroll before feeling an unfamiliar chakra approaching.

"Come on out, I promise I won't bite", the man called out, addressing the darkness to his left. A venus fly trap plant emerged thirty feet away from the ground followed by a head dead center of the plant. "Whatcha need? I have somewhere I kinda need to be."

The plant-like figure emerged fully from the ground. He wore a solid black cloak that came up high and masked the lower part of his face. His eyes traced the outline of his target, trying to make contact with the face of the man. The sleeveless haori reflected strongly against the moon light but everything else seemed to disappear. _"The shadows seem to be making him appear like this..but thats none of my worries right now..."_

"I'm here on behalf of Madara Uchiha to offer-", came a light, energetic tone from the plant-like creature before being cut off by a now visible upturned hand.

"No thanks. While I must applaud you on finding me, I really must be going since I have no time to spare. And, if you think I would take _him _up on any offer you must be out of your mind. No matter the price he would be willing to pay I would never take the job. Take it easy though." the haori wearing man replied with a mocking tone before slipping backwards and fully submerging himself into the shadow of a nearby tree.

The black cloak fluttered while its owner made a quick move to try and seize the steel colored haori. When he lunged out with his hand he grabbed nothing but air. He heard a dispersing sound, like the wind blowing sand across a beach. _"Hmmm, gone just like that."_ After a few more moments of looking and trying to find a chakra trail the cloak encased plant creature huffed heavily while shivering.

"_Oh well, its too cold and its time to get out of here. But his nickname seems to be very fitting." _

**AN:** Just saying, this will probably be a lengthy story. Also I noted that I wrote a couple pages over the last one, even though I thought this was going to be a shorter chapter which was really weird. I didn't want to showcase too many abilities yet since I'm bringing characters (not all are present just yet) into the fold. I know there are quite a few characters so please don't get disappointed if a few disappear for a chapter or two since NaruHina is at the front lines here and taking the main stage. To many I'm sure the atmosphere appears to be quite serene and peaceful but let me remind everyone that this is the **beginning** of the war. I wanted to give everyone a taste of how I'm going to be writing action scenes (yes I know they were short, again I did not want to showcase abilities just yet). There may be less detail next time on the attacks so the fighting can be a little more fluid and continuous unless you all would rather me give deeper detail. Things are REALLY going to kick up next chapter since I have pretty much laid out everything I need to before pushing this thing forward. Thanks for sticking it out and I hope you enjoyed it!


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry about the "fake double update" but i forgot to add the Disclaimer and the line bars haha.

_Disclaimer: Yep, don't own Naruto, wish i did though_

* * *

_Konoha, right outside Ichiraku's..._

Naruto was so stunned and amazed he could barely form coherent thoughts about his one and only favorite food. There it was in all of it's glory, and then multiplied a thousand times over.

Ichiraku's had big bold black letters across the top of all four sides. There were four sides with a bar and stools on each side. In the center of the four bars was a giant kitchen area Only, the new ramen stand was decorated in black and dark orange colors. Someone dressed in a feminine dark orange outfit similar to the one a certain someone used to wear that worked there was visable from the bar. Naruto recognized her the instant she moved into a little light radiating from an overhead light. Ayame walked out of a swivel door made into the bar facing Naruto and smiled.

"Naruto-kun, welcome to the newly built Ichiraku's!", she shouted while throwing her hands up underneath the sign. "Otousan, Naruto's finally here!". The sound of a pan dropping followed by a figure clad in a black kimono emerged from the same door as fast as lightning. "Naruto! Your finally back! Now quit drooling all over the place and get in here, I told everyone you were to be my first customer so I can't open up till you eat!"

With eyes brimming with tears of happiness Naruto jumped twenty feet into the air, whooping and hollering all the way. "Oi Ojisan, this is amazing! Come on Hinata lets eat!". Surprised he didn't forget her, Hinata felt a tug on her hand and instantly blushed as she was drug into the newly rebuilt Ichiraku's. They took their seats and before Naruto even said a word Teuchi came out with multiple bowls of ramen and laid them all out in front of Naruto and Hinata.

"Everythings on the house, as a token of my appreciation!"Teuchi exclaimed while putting an arm around his daughter and grinning wildly at Naruto. Naruto was dumbstruck and decided to ask the obvious. "Why is that ojisan?", his look of pure bewilderment.

The elder ramen shop owner sat with a mildly puzzled look before addressing Naruto with a deadly serious tone, "Naruto, you saved this village. You saved us all. Through your sacrifice, Ayame and I were able to reconstruct and expand. Not only that, but everyone wants to eat where the hero eats so buisness is going to be good!"

"Ojisan...I don't know what to say," Naruto rattled out in a raspy voice with his head down, "thanks for letting me eat al-"

"No, Naruto, thank you for everything you have done. And Hinata as well for the help recently with the finishing touches. Now, eat!" Teuchi replied back with a grin that was as wide as his face could manage. Naruto stole a glance over at Hinata who was looking at him with a slight smile, and a blush to match. "Thank you too, Hinata," and before she could ask what for he answered her unasked question, "for making this the best day ever!" Her eyes lit up and she turned around smiling to herself. _"See, he does appreciate it, I knew this was a good idea! And I have him here by myself too!" _She happily sighed to herself and picked up her chopsticks to break them apart.

Naruto pulled his chopsticks apart and yelled, "Itadakimasu!" The next moment he was ravaging bowl after bowl of delicious ramen while Teuchi struggled to keep up with the never ending appetite of the young teenager.

_Close to two hours later, later afternoon, Konoha's famous Ichiraku's..._

As Naruto moved the last bite of ramen to his mouth, the moment finally came when he held his hand out in a stopping motion. Teuchi, who was behind the counter, instantly collapsed from exhaustion as Ayame ran to make sure he was ok.

"That was amazing!", he exclaimed as he put his chopsticks down while patting his stomach. The grin on Naruto's face could not have been any wider. Hinata sat there, to stunned to even move. He had eaten well over thirty bowls of ramen, to the point where she decided to stop counting. She thought that he would never stop and just continue on for the rest of the day. As her mind wondered between thoughts of how the day transpired, she was interrupted by the overly stuffed blonde.

"Say Hinata, how have you been doing? I'm sorry for not talking much, I guess I was a little hungrier then I expected I would be and didn't give us a chance to get caught up", Naruto said as he gave her an awkward smile. As she stepped back into reality she tried her best to clear her mind but began fidgeting with her fingers.

"Anou, I-I-I'm doing ok. Otousan has been busy reconstructing the Hyuuga complex and I have been helping out there when I can. Everyone else from our generation are doing pretty important things, I wish I could be more of a help though..." she trailed off as she looked down, still fidgeting with her fingers .

"Are you kidding me? You helped build this place! Pretty important if you ask me! Your family is pretty important to you know. It's important that everyone gets their homes back in order", Naruto replied while drifting off in silent thought about what exactly he was going to do for a home. While he was in thought, he failed to notice the smile following the redness in Hinata's cheeks. _"Naruto-kun..."_

"So N-N-Naruto-kun, how was your training trip?" she asked, pulling Naruto out of his reverie.

"Ehh, pretty cool. I got to meet another Jinchuriki...", and Naruto went through all the details of the trip, all the way from their arrival and meeting Killer Bee to Naruto mastering the Kyuubi's chakra with the training that followed. As Naruto concluded a thought apparently popped into his mind as his eyes got slightly less vibrant and his tone more serious as he spoke.

"Hinata, I have been meaning to talk to you," he paused before continuing while struggling to form words, "about...about that day, you know, when you fought Pein..."

Hinata's heart stopped.

She froze, not even able to meet his eyes. Everything Naruto said seemed to make an echo in her mind.

Naruto moved off his stool so that he was kneeling beside her, looking up into her eyes with his mouth moving but no words reaching her ears. _"I'm not ready for this...I don't know what to say...How do I-"_

"Hinata, Hinata are you ok?", the concern rising in his voice. As she forced herself to meet his deep blue eyes all she could do was give a weak nod.

"Well I was wondering, you know...why you decid-", Naruto said before a voice from behind the flaps to the ramen shop interrupted him. In stepped the all to familiar pink haired kunoichi. Hinata was drawing serious blanks as her body started shaking due in part to the now retreating adrenaline.

"Ha, I knew I would find you here Naruto. Hi Hinata!", Sakura exclaimed while approaching the two who were in a rather odd and uncomfortable situation. Naruto got back up on the stool and turned to greet their new visitor. "Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto called back while all Hinata could manage was a small smile and a simple wave.

"Naruto the Hokage sent me to find you. She said its urgent and that you would be pretty surprised." Sakura explained while clearly oblivious to what she had stumbled in on. Naruto nodded and Sakura moved outside the shop flaps. Naruto got up and stood in place for several moments before looking back at Hinata who was still on the stool, head down with her bangs covering her face.

"Hinata?", he addressed her and waited till she looked up before going on, "how about we finish this talk up another time, yeah?" The extreme shade of red that had presided over her face was enough to make anyone worry, save the one who was completely oblivious to her affection for him...or was he?

"O-o-ok...thanks for having l-l-lunch with me today" she replied before giving a tiny grin in the hope that she would be better prepared the next time.

He gave a soft, almost sad smile, and nodded before moving the flaps aside to move outside.

"_Well that went just great didn't it...I can't believe I acted like that..."_

Ayame finally got up from the floor, heaving a worn out Teuchi to the counter.

"Now, Otousan, we prepare for the lunch time raid! Hinata can you flip the sign to 'open'?" Ayame asked sweetly before another bang came from behind her.

"Otousan get up!"

* * *

_Tsunade's office..._

A knock came to her door, taking her attention away from the mindless paperwork she was currently working on. "Come in!", the Hokage yelling towards the door while shoving the file she was reading under her desk.

Naruto walked in with Sakura in tow with Naruto making his way to the front of the Hokage's desk while Sakura shut the door.

Naruto locked eyes with the Hokage, curiosity ablaze in his eyes as strong as ever.

"Oi, baa-chan, whats up?"

As Tsunade narrowed her eyes and cringed a little, she found it was pointless to ever have try to greet her as the Hokage. _"I'm actually getting kinda used to it anyways..." _Coming out of her thoughts, Tsunade looked Naruto over as if analyzing him before addressing him.

"As you know," the Hokage started off, "we are currently short on ninja, experienced ninja even more so. But we aren't here to look over that fact, instead the reason we are here is to address your progress, Naruto."

Naruto, still skeptical to her intent, simply nodded and let her go on. Tsunade stood and pulled something out from under her desk while putting it behind her back. She walked over to stand in front of Naruto while concealing the object in her hand.

"Naruto as of right now," Tsunade said as she pulled her hands to the front , "you will be known as Naruto Uzumaki, Chunin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

In her hands she held not a standard forest green chunin vest, but one in solid black. The Godaime Hokage brought her hands in front and offered the chunin vest to Naruto. Naruto stood there in shock, complete shock. _"How...what...huh?"_

"Baa-chan, what makes you think I rightfully deserve this? I never passed the Chunin Exams", Naruto stated while sulking a tad.

"I really hope your kidding brat," the Hokage replied as Naruto met her eyes, "you keep seeming to forget who you exactly beat in order to save this village." Tsunade turned slightly so the view of the newly rebuilding village could be seen. "This is possible because of _you._ I'm sorry, but I seem to think that Pein was a little bit stronger then the Chunin Exams, yeah?", Tsunade said.

Naruto looked out over the village and tears came to his eyes. Sakura put a hand on his shoulder, causing Naruto to glance over. Sakura gave a small smile and push forward, and Naruto stumbled over to Tsunade. He took the jacket and felt it over. _"This is real...this isn't a dream..."_

Naruto reached over and hugged Tsunade fiercely without warning, startling Tsunade. She smiled and ruffled his hair. "You earned it you little punk."

Naruto pulled back and unzipped the vest. As he put it on a black and orange clothing piece fell out of the vest behind him. As he picked it up he instantly knew what it was.

"Just like the Yondaime's, save for the little fact I had to have some people change the colors around just a tad," Tsunade said as she wandered back over to her chair and sat down. Naruto sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Thanks, baa-chan."

With Sakura all ready at the door, Naruto walked over with the cloak in hand and moved into the doorway after Sakura before pausing.

"You know, you could have made it all orange" Naruto said before closing the door behind him. Naruto ducked as a large book went splintering through the door and embedded itself firmly in the opposing wall. Naruto laughted heartily and quickly jetted out of the building as dark began to settle in.

* * *

_Kumo, Lightning Country, Killer Bee's training site..._

"Lariot!"

An explosion with electricity flaying about the area caused rock and debris to be jettisoned everywhere.

Standing opposite each other, Killer Bee and the Raikage were breathing heavy. "Hey, Bee, you know if you keep holding back I'm gonna kick your ass" the Raikage said as he assumed a fighting stance again.

Bee tilted his head and laughed, "Please yo, keep it real brotha, this one is fighting you just like any otha!" Bee pulled on the power of the Hachibi (8-tails) and became enshrouded in a layer of chakra with 4 tails laying behind him.

"Ha, thats more like it" the Raikage said through clenched teeth as his body became encompassed by lightning-like armor. In only took a second before the two had all ready met elbow to elbow. They exchanged extremely rapid blows, blocks, and shunshins that would put many other ninja to shame. Each tried to one up the other, but all that could be exchanged were glancing blows at the most and the ground being torn by the devastating shock waves.

Finally the two met with Bee skidding to a halt while reaching out to grab the Raikages right hand punch. As the two connected a shockwave was sent out and the earth began to shatter from underneath them.

Bee clenched his brother's fist and threw his weight into a punch with his left hand towards his opponent's face. The Raikage easily dodged to the side and while still connected at his fist, used his lightning quick reflexes to rotate into a 180 degree spin into his brother placing his back into Bee's chest. Pushing his knee out, he used the still connected punch to pull Bee over the top left side of his body and slam him into the ground. Bee immediately released the Raikage's punch as he brought his arms up into an x-block in front his face right before the punch came. The force caused Bee to be pushed further into the ground.

Bee pushed out on his block and planted one hand on the ground while rotating his body over so he was looking at the ground. Bee slung his momentum around and went for a sweeping ground kick. The Raikage shunshined quickly backwards with Bee using a shunshin to appear right in front of him with a hand bursting full of lightning.

"Raiton: Shocking Bolt Burst!"

Lightning shot out of his hand, randomly crisscrossing and zigzagging in a crude manner throughout the air, disrupting A's field of vision. A bolstered his lightning armor with more chakra to ensure that the bolts didn't reach his skin before a quick blink later Bee was nowhere to be seen in front of him. Feeling the heavy pressure of the Hachibi's chakra increasing from above, A moved his only arm to block the unavoidable axe kick. The Hachibi's host brought his leg down hard, six tails now laying behind him. The kick forced the earth to burst from underneath the Raikage, before he pushed off the ground and caused Bee to go with his momentum into a series of backflips before landing gracefully. Before he could start again, his older brother held up his hand indicating the spar to stop.

"Much better, even though your still slow," the Raikage smirked, "at least you finally made contact with me"

"Ha, we will see next time then just who is slower, when we know the winner is gonna be the younger!" Bee shouted before exhaustion from extended use of the Hachibi set in. Breathing became harder to manage but he managed to look up and catch the troubling look of his brother.

"Bee, you know this isn't a game anymore, right?" the Raikage asked, with the slightest bit of worry creeping into his voice.

Bee paused for a minute before making a cocky smirk, "Yeah yeah I know, I'm the Eight tailed host though, you know?"

The Raikage turned around and looked out as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon. "Yeah, but our enemies are determined to capture you. People beyond our level are out there Bee, and if they succeed then the ninja world will collapse. You have to realize that if you leave again, there will probably be no hope in getting you back since no where is safe anymore except our village."

Bee then suddenly seemed to change gears completely, as he became extremely serious, something that was very rarely seen in the Hachibi's jinchuriki.

"If your threatening me not to leave again, you don't have to worry since I'm not going anywhere. We need to find someway to secure our borders and put up some sort of defense, and we are going to need people to fight these enemies. This isn't going to be like the last war, is it?"

With a sigh of relief of not having to find someway or someone to restrain his brother from leaving the village again, A went into thought about his response.

"No, it's not. The goal of our main enemy is not one of world destruction but world obedience. We have no idea what this entails but we can only guess he is going to be coming after you and the Kyuubi kid from Konoha. We can't let them get that far though" A replied.

Bee nodded and drifted off in thought before an obvious question came to mind.

"Well, what are we going to do for the kid? I know it is Konoha's problem but if that kid is captured then the problem is going to be global." As Bee finished his inquiry a bird came swooping in with a scroll attached to his leg with a visible Konoha emblem stamped on the seal to the scroll.

The Raikage let out an audible "Hmph" before turning his attention back to Bee, "I referred her to someone I met once."

* * *

_Two days later, Konoha, close to midnight..._

Tsunade had finally found a chance to relax. The paperwork was clear...for now. The night was calm and quiet, and the newly cleared lanes of common traffic were now empty in the village. She allowed herself a quick smile before turning back from the view of the village and regaining her sitting position in her chair. Kakashi had finally given in after many failed attempts to have him take the job of Head Commander of Anbu. With the ROOT uprising and quick downfall with Danzo's death, she was unsure of who to trust, and who better to do the job then the famous Copy Ninja?

As she started to dwell on the possibilities of her letter to the Raikage, a icy cool draft of air came in through the window and it tingled on her skin on this warm night.

"_No...the windows were just closed...," _Tsunade thought as she tensed her body and her hands instantly began to glow a bluish green.

"You know, Hokage-sama, I really like the view of the sky at night from Konoha. It's different, but still pretty good," a smooth, deep voice laced only with a serious calm. Tsunade turned to face her ambusher, only to find the window open with a figure sitting down on the roof with his back to her. One arm was flat along the window sill while arm and hand looked to be holding a book. "You are blocking the light though"

Clearly this man was not here to fight, otherwise he would have seized the opportunity when he had the element of surprise. She relaxed a tad but still readied herself incase of an attack... _"How in the world did he get past all the guards and the Anbu?"_

"Well, since your clearly not here to attack, why not come in and let me know what your intentions are? But I promise you, one false move and your life is forfeit. Understood?"

The figure got up and turned her while giving a small nod. What took the legendary Sannin by surprise was his appearance. He wore a bandana around the top part of his head and a mask that wrapped around his lower face, similar to Kakashis. The two met behind his head, securing them in place with a single knot. He also wore glasses, giving himself only an area or two of actual skin revealed where the glasses could no cover along the sides of his face in the eye area. A set of midnight blue long sleeve shirt and slightly baggy pants covered his body, with a steel colored sleeveless haori over the top. He also wore a pair of wooden sandals, and stood around six feet in height.

Reeling herself back to reality, she motioned with her hand to the chair across from her desk. The man walked over and lazily sat down in the chair. The two sat there quietly before the man finally reached inside to pull something out. The Hokage tensed for only a moment before he revealed a scroll and tossed it to her. On the scroll was the Raikages writing.

"_Wait a second...you mean to tell me...THIS is HIM? This has to be some mistake"_

"So," he started off, "tell me what seems to be the issue here, since I told him never to contact me unless it was absolutely urgent."

"I want you to train a series of chunin and jonin that are of a certain year. With the amount of ninja we are using to rebuild we are currently understaffed with training higher level ninja" she replied, still coming down from disbelief, but there was no way the Raikage's writing was forged. "I have secured you room and board and you will be payed whatever you wish in return for your services. This is a most difficult time and we are really in need of assistance with the current turn of events."

The man looked at her intently and gave a shallow laugh. "Yeah, no wonder why you had so many gambling debts," he stated. "Now, how about we talk about the real reason why I was called all the way out here, Hokage-sama?"

Closing her eyes in defeat, she exhaled and thought about her options. She had to tell him, and she could tell that he would leave if she did not give him the info he needed. She opened up her eyes and looked back up into the glasses of the man across from her.

"We have someone we need protected. While I still want you to train this group of chunin and jonin, it will be used as a small cover for your protection of the individual. You will be staying at his home, and he is not to leave your sight ever for any reasons" she stated, with perhaps a little more command then she intended.

"Huh...well sounds like a plan so far. I'll ask ya later for the info on the boy, but for now I just wanna get some sleep," he said as he stood up, raising his arms above his head and yawning. "I will just sleep on the outside of the walls for tonight, but don't read me wrong just yet Hokage-sama. I have not accepted this request yet. Before I accept this, I'm first going to test things out to make sure it fits the bill."

Tsunade smugly smiled, thinking back to her previous agreement with Kakashi. "Oh, you won't have to worry about that. By the way, what do we call you?"

"Z," he replied before pointing backwards with his thumb to the shadow of the bookshelf, "and by the way, the second one was way better. Has so much more good stuff, but anyways, later on."

Z moved out the window and made his way along the rooftops before dropping out of sight close to a currently under construction part of the wall. Tsunade turned and gave out a huff, while looking at the bookshelf. "You know, you could have masked your presence a little bit better"

A figure clad in standard Anbu clothes but with silver Konoha symbols on the top parts of the shoulders stepped out of the shadow with a book in his hand. The figure had a single eyed, fox-looking mask on and a stream of silver hair sticking on end. The Anbu turned to address her, not looking up from the book currently in his hands.

"Yeah, I could have, but you see, the good part in the book came up...and well you know how that goes" he said with voice tainted with sarcasm.

She waved him off. "Go get some sleep, im going to be interested with what this seemingly good merc has to offer tomorrow. And, im going to want a good show, Kakashi."

"Hai," Kakashi replied. He disappeared into a swirl of leaves, leaving the Hokage to think upon the current progress she had just made. _"Two birds with one stone I guess..."_

* * *

_Konoha, not to far away..._

He had been using Sage mode late at night the past few nights that he had been back. For some reason though he had found a familiar but distant chakra, fading in and out of existence as the chakra was used. But at the center of this chakra, he could feel...rock solid determination in it's intent. As he journeyed out to find this chakra, he passed the gates and moved out into the forest. He knew that if Tsunade found out, he would probably be restricted behind belief. Naruto's curiosity got the best of him though...

"_I need to make sure that whoever is out here knows that they could be ambushed so easily. But more importantly why is this chakra so familiar? I know I have felt this chakra before"_

Naruto kept walking, still in Sage Mode, to the all to familiar fields that he used to train at. He could still detect the chakra and it wasn't far away now. He moved past the wooden posts he had poured hours of work into and moved off into the forest. As he got closer the chakra flaring in and out of existence seemed to be become stronger, more fierce. As Naruto came to a small opening in the forest, the sight he received made him think he was dreaming.

Hinata, with eyes closed, drifted in and out of multiple Gentle Fist movements. The fluidity that she displayed greatly impressed him, but even more so was the passion behind the movement. The determination that seemed to roll off of Hinata just seemed to immobilize him. As she picked up her pace, her eyes opened and her Byakugan flared to life. The moment she did this, she became completely still. Naruto felt the determination in the chakra fade, and finally came to realize he had been caught. Shaking his temporary loss of movement away, he moved forward to talk to Hinata. Hinata was completely at a loss for words as he made his way over to her.

"_What do I do? Why did he come all the way out here?" _she thought. How she was found out was quickly assumed to be his Sage Mode, evident in the way his eyes looked.

"Hinata, what are you doing out here? You know how dangerous it is now with everything going on." Naruto said as he took himself out of Sage Mode.

"Anou, I-I-I just wanted to practice a few movements I have been working on. With all this talk of war, I thought I would start training more often. I also d-d-don't want to disgrace my family and fall in a fight ever again", _"Like against Pein," _she thought_. _ "I figured night was the best time since I could practice without being disturbed."

"You mean to say," Naruto said, "you come out and practice all this stuff without someone else to train against?"

Hinata nodded and shyly looked off into the forest with her hands clasped together in front of her. With her Byagukan still active, she caught Naruto regulating a chakra that she only saw when he entered Sage Mode. She turned back to face him and his eyes were once again displaying the characteristics of Sage Mode, with horizontal-barred pupils and orange lining around his eyes.

"Well, since I did disturb you," Naruto said, "and since we are both wide awake, how about you show me some of those movements?" He gave her a grin and her heart stopped beating.

"_What!"_

"N-Naruto-kun, why would you do that?" she replied, quivering a little from the anticipation building. _"Could he really want to spar, and with me?"_

"I will do anything for one of my friends! And you know, we have never really trained together before." Naruto said back, before assuming a stance that could best benefit his Frog Katas.

"_Of course, I should have seen it before,"_ she thought, _"he will do anything to help anyone, even me._ She grinned, and a gentle rise came to her self confidence as she assumed her traditional Gentle Fist stance. _"Well, what could it hurt?"_

Naruto took the initiative and began closing the gap. What happened after, would appear to many as an amazing chain of movement. Each would attempt to make a hit before being deflected, or a kick that would be swiftly dodged with a sidestep. As the two progressed, the intensity was boosted. Blurs could only be seen as the moonlight danced off their figures. As they came together from a quick open handed jab from Naruto to Hinata's midsection, she caught the hand before pivoting and pulling Naruto towards her. She rotating with her other hand stretched out to strike a tenketsu (chakra point) in his upper shoulder before he grabbed her open hand with his. As they paused, the loss of breath from the two could be heard as the tension mounted on Hinata with being locked in this position.

"Hehe," Naruto chuckled lightly, "Hinata, you need to stop holding back"

Startled by being caught so easily, she just really didn't want to cause any harm to Naruto, _"Even though I probably couldn't, even if I tried" she thought. _

"Don't worry about me, just push yourself as hard as you can go," Naruto said through heavy breathing, "otherwise, you never know what you are going to be capable of"

Thats when Naruto felt the determination return, her chakra heavy with the feeling. She sent a flare of chakra out through her palms, causing Naruto to back off to a safe spot. She tucked her hands close to her body and balled up her fists. Through the ongoing blush that had yet to disappear throughout the sparring, she finally managed a small, shy smile as her hands erupted into fists shrouded with what looked like blue lions.

"H-Hai, Naruto-kun," she said, barely audible to Naruto, before she rushed forward with far more force then before. Naruto could only play on the defensive,capable only of the ability to deflect the jabs, rotations, and chakra that encompassed Hinata's hands. It was totally different from the Hinata he knew before, her style had gone from being mainly defensive, to a ferocious offense. To say he was greatly impressed would be an extreme understatement.

Although he was not going full out, he was getting close to it. The pair moved about the area at an amazing pace. Deflections and the hiss of chakra missing it's target, jabs hanging only a fraction of a centimeter off target. Finally she saw the opening, and she finally manged it...

Naruto got careless and dropped his guard to make one of the few offensive attacks he managed this round. Hinata deflected the jab up in the air and spun to Naruto's opposite side and out of range from any other possible attack, or defense for that matter. She struck a few of the tenketsu in his shoulder within the passion of the moment, but instantly regretted it as Naruto spun from the recoil while making a disgruntled sound. Naruto turned away from her for a second, completely stunned. Expecting an angered Naruto to come back into the fold, instead the reaction he gave it threw her for a complete loop...

"Hinata that was amazing!" he shouted, holding his shoulder. "I have never seen something like that before!"

Thank Kami for the night, for her blush seemed to mount her whole face. She allowed herself a quick feeling of success, but was concerned about his shoulder.

"Naruto-Kun, what about your shoulder? I know I hit it pretty hard...but I really didn't mean to!" she exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hands at her quick outburst.

Naruto rolled his shoulder in his socket, showing that he was ok and put his hands behind his head while deactivating his Sage Mode. "Since I had Sage Mode on the hit didn't completely seal off the points, still gave me a good knock though!"

His eyes met hers as she looked up while deactivating her Byakugan and a weird feeling crept up his spine. It wasn't a danger sense, it was something totally different. _"When that punch connected..."_

He threw on a grin from ear to ear while pushing the previous thought to the back of his mind, "How about I walk you back, I don't even want to know how late it is, and I know your father probably doesn't know your out does he?"

She shyly shook her head no and looked towards the village. Naruto walked up beside her, his breathing finally becoming normal again. "T-T-Thank you, Naruto-kun" she said as they began to trek along towards the gate, pushing her pointer fingers together while wearing a hidden joyous expression across her face. _"That was amazing, I can't believe I got to spend time with him, and he wasn't even mad when I hit him. He even seemed impressed!"_

"Anytime, I enjoyed it!" ecstatic as ever. They walked along in silence, but both were in deep thought. Naruto still wondered about the explanation he still wanted to give her regarding the comment she made. The comment she made to him the day he fought Pein. He put it off this time, as the moment and opportunity at training pushed the thought clearly from his mind for the time being. But surely it had returned, as it so often had. He frowned inwardly, as he realized he would have to tell her soon. _"Dang, girls make everything so complicated..."_

* * *

_Shimogakure (Village Hidden in the Frost), Daimyo's Mansion..._

"So, as you can clearly see, they would have requested your prescence at the Kage Summit or the Daimyo's meeting if they had intentions of allying themselves with you," Madara logically put forward . He was in a sound proofed room while Kabuto and Tomatsu waited outside the door. The Daimyo of the frost country, covered in finely crafted light blue and white robes, walked around in circles with his hands behind his back.

"I see what you mean, but is it not to soon? It sounds like this meeting was merely a preliminary and they will possibly branc-"

"No. The major nations have a misguided ideal that they will need no others to put the necessary army together and crush us. If they succeed though, they will jockey for power of the tailed beasts and then use them for weapons once again to help them expand their borders. So you see, that is what we are trying to prevent..."

The Daimyo stopped moving and locked on to the facemask, behind which the eyes could not be seen. He knew that perhaps most of what was said was true, since the major powers of the ninja world often obtained far greater egos and ambitions then what should be allowed. While the Daimyo had some suspicions that this man called "Madara" was not entirely telling the truth, he felt compelled to join from the obvious lack of faith the major powers had in the Frost Country. Maybe they really felt like they had no need of Frost, but still, he just couldn't commit based on what Madara was saying.

"I'm sorry Madara, but I can't commit to anything on this short of notice and especially on this information. While I understand they five great ninja nations may have cut the Frost Country out of their calculations and plans, I can't commit to open war. However I will allow the the transport of troops across our borders as long as they do not move through villages and disrupt my people."

For a split second Madara seemed to be considering something but he just nodded. "Very well, I bid you farewell then Daimyo. We will be in touch"

After they were escorted out of the mansion and were a good distance away in the snow covered forest, Kabuto began questioning Madara about the deal and asking him why didn't he just take over the Daimyo in a similar fashion to what he did to Yagura, the Jinchuriki and Yondaime Mizukage. He could then control the Frost Country's military movements.

"No, I will not force this one. I need him to want to do this," Madara replied, pausing only to revel in the amount if info he was telling Kabuto, but he continued on, "since I will have other things to attend to. Plus, once he is motivated and inspired I will need to do little in the way of mobilizing anything he possesses. He will then have the urge to dominate, and that kind of motivation is far greater then anything I could instill in his mind."

"I see, very well then. But what did we come here for in the first place? This country has very little interaction with the ninja world and little to offer" Kabuto pressed on, clearly trying to extract all the info he could on Madara's plans.

"These are no ordinary ninja here, many and most of the ninja here in the frost country can all innately use ice ninjutsu. This can prove to be an amazing asset _once_ acquired" Madara replied, not caring in the least with the information that he thought Kabuto had already known. He wrote it off as a nonfactor and continued to trudge along next to Tomatsu, who was remaining extremely quiet but alert.

"Hmmmm...a very helpful ally could be made here then, but how are you going to pull this off?" Kabuto asked once more, since he had yet to be denied by Madara.

"Oh, there are plenty of ways to motivate someone into action, some are far more drastic then perhaps what is necessary, but ultimately you get what you want" he replied coolly. A moment later a distorted spiral covered the trio as they disappeared from sight.

* * *

_Konoha, morning, Hokage quarters..._

It was really weird, and kind of uncomfortable, but she could feel him coming. Tsunade felt the same icy cool breeze sweep through her office and she knew he must be right outside the door. Sure enough a knock came to the door and she yelled for them to enter.

Shizune opened the door and Z stepped in. Tsunade stood up and walked around to stand in front of Z, but motioned for Shizune to keep the door open.

"I have something planned for us this morning, and someone wants to see you." she said as she faced the taller man in front of her. He cocked his head to the side and seemed to ponder the idea but merely shrugged.

"Alright I guess, I hope its a good looking girl though!" he exclaimed as he turned to go back out the door while Shizune stood there frozen in shock, before blushing slightly and tilting her head forward. Tsunade wasn't as phased, but still it took her a second to brush the comment off. _"Ha, this guy obviously doesn't know that I had the biggest pervert in the world for a team mate and lov-"_

She stopped mid-step in the doorway. _"Jiraiya..."_

The Hokage quickly gathered herself together while recognizing that now was not the time to think about him, even though she thought of him often enough nowadays. Maybe it was the regret...

As they left the Hokage tower Tsunade motioned for Z to follow her. They strolled off towards an exit to the village on the side where a forest seemed to encompass a large training area. As they walked, the cold aura that seemed to emanate from Z died down and he put his hands in his pockets as the continued on the path.

"Before we go further Z," Tsunade said while stopping causing Z to stop, "from what I could gather you live a pretty secretive life, why would you come out and suddenly bring yourself in out in the open? You know this village contains many people and word may get out that your here"

A question that he knew he should have expected, but he hadn't prepared a proper answer just yet. Or more of a favorable reason he supposed.

"While I may live out in the middle of nowhere, that does not mean that I don't know whats going on in the world. I know that many things have been set into motion, and while I have no idea what the details are, I believe this...is where I can make the biggest difference" Z replied, while he dropped his tone to one of slight sadness at the end of his explanation. "Is that good enough for you, Hokage-sama?"

"For now, yes. But lets get going, we are almost there" she said back to Z, before continuing on towards the field that laid ahead. When they arrived, no one was to be seen. Tsunade started fuming. _"He is always late..."_

After tapping her foot impatiently for what must have been a few minutes, a figure clad in full Anbu gear and a one-eyed animal mask resembling a fox appeared in a swirl of leaves. Tsunade faced him with an eye-tick and a trembling fist. The Anbu jumped a little and waved his hands quickly in front of himself.

"Apologies Hokage-sama! You see, this blade of grass was in the way of this beetle so I had to rip it from the ground!"

Calming herself, the famous medic just turned around and looked at Z. "This lazy ass will be your test" she said.

Z looked over at the disoriented Anbu with freakishly tall, silver hair. He gave a few short laughts and looked back at Tsunade. "You know," Z said, "he isn't hiding anything with that mask. Anyone with half of a brain would know thats the Copy Ninja, Kakashi Hatake."

The Anbu looked over at Z while putting his hand on his masked chin. "What gave it away?"

Z pointed at the hair and Kakashi sighed and turned to the Hokage. "Well, I didn't plan on fighting with the mask on anyways, but Hokage-sama you should get me a cool bandana like what that kid over there is wearing"

Tsunade crossed her arms, not amused. "On with it!" she yelled out.

In that very second, several things happened at once. The mask was cast aside and Kakashi had already shunshined to Z. Z brought his forearm up to block the punch aimed at the side of his face. As the punch connected to Z's forearm, a freezing whirl of air surrounded the two. Kakashi could feel his skin tingling...

"_No, its not my skin, its coming from underneath, from within..."_

Kakashi used a back somersault to safety about twenty meters away before flashing through multiple handstyles, unleashing his jutsu.

"Katon: Grand Fireball!"

Z was all ready moving through his own hand seals...

"Suiton: Hydroblast"

Z brought one hand up and a steady stream of water shot out from his hand. Water met fire and steam instantly materialized. With the obstruction in place Kakashi formed a hand sign and made a clone, who went charging forward to Z who still had not moved. The chill came again, and Z's voice rang out over the hissing steam before Kakashi could make his next move.

"Fuuton: Cyclonic Winds"

A powerful gust of wind began revolving around Z and spinning wildly similar to how a tornado spun, disrupting the further visual blockade of steam as the steam was blown about. After the cyclone died, Kakashi lifted the headband he was wearing over his left eye revealing the Sharingan.

Kakashi quickly closed the gap towards Z, as the chill drafted out towards him. Kakashi's motion was suddenly slowed, as Z threw out a kick to Kakashi's side. As it connected, a puff of smoke erupted from where Kakashi had just been hit indicating a shadow clone. Z pushed off the ground and into the air, with Kakashi coming flying out of the ground hot on his heels. Z could see the Sharingan clearly now as he ascended further up into the air.

Z started using one handed seals in his right hand, but before he completed them in his left hand he began making hand seals for another technique. Kakashi was completely caught off guard as this was something totally new to him, and even with the Sharingan he could only catch one set of seals at a time. Catching the right hand seals as a water technique, be ran through a series of handseals for a earth technique.

"Suiton: Jetfall"

A highly pressurized waterfall came down from above and Z moved to the other side of the cascading water, out of sight. The water continued down towards Kakashi.

"Doton: Earth style wall!"

As the wall came up from the ground to shield Kakashi from the impending waterfall, Z had let loose his second jutsu...

"Futon: Tailwind of the North!"

An extremely high paced wind laced with razor sharp chakra came rushing up from the ground to intercept Kakashi. An explosion of earth, wind, and water scattered about the area. In Kakashi's spot lay a tree branch. Kakashi formed a few more clones before turning from the tree he was currently behind on the edge of the arena before rushing back towards Z. The aura hit but he pushed onwards, determined to find out what exactly the feeling was. The shadow clones made attempts at multiple hits, with kicks, punches, and misthrown grapples all over the place. But Z seemed able to keep up, only the way he was keeping up seemed not possible. Z was by no means slow, but his movement was slower then your average jonin, and certainly below Kakashi's level of speed. Z seemed like he could play out an ok offense, but his guard really looked like it would be a tough spot to counter. Then he saw a possible explanation to the aura, and took an advantage to test his claim...

As Z landed from deflecting and dispersing the last shadow clone, he could feel some sort of static charge the area. He turned just in time to catch the real Kakashi with a hand blazing full of lightning chakra. Claping his hands together, Z gathered chakra quickly to form his technique.

"Futon: Zephyr's Hold!"

High speed winds formed a sphere around Z, and Kakashi's hand rushed forward to meet it before the aura took a firm grip on him as he moved closer...

"Raikiri!"

Electric bolts raced everywhere as the lightning met the wind barrier, causing the air to become charged as Kakashi's hand began to descend into the wind barrier. Kakashi instantly felt a surge in chakra as the wind began to rotate faster and expand outward slowly...

"Enough!" Tsunade's rang out from the other side. The two took multiple steps back, both lightly panting. "I have seen what I needed to, what about you Kakashi?"

Kakashi dropped his stance and stood up straight. "I guess so, not to bad," he replied as he pushed the headband back over his Sharingan.

"Pshhhhhhhh," Z let out as he put his hands back to his sides. "You know Kakashi-san, next time I think you shouldn't holdback"

Kakashi gave an eye smile. "I could say the same to you, Z-san." Kakashi turned to catch his fox mask which was being thrown to him by Tsunade. "Well I have things I need to attend to. Until next time, Z-san." Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Z looked over to Tsunade while adjusting his glasses.

"So, what is next on the agenda?"

She smirked as she turned to leave and motioned him to follow. "To meet the knuckhead and his friends that you will be teaching."

* * *

_Konoha, main gate, following morning..._

The group most commonly known as the Rookie 12 assembled near the meeting area in front of the main gate. Team Kurenai was in full attendance, with Kiba and Shino holding a debate in tactics while Hinata sat dozing against a newly planted tree from her lack of sleep the night before. Team Guy stood with Rock Lee as the center stage, preaching to the duo of Neji and Tenten about the flames of youth. Team Asuma was in attendance minus Shikamaru who had been promoted to be a tactical analyst for Tsunade's war council. Finally, Team Yamato/Kakashi, who had been holding a coversation over what Tsunade could have possibly called all of them together for Each were holding conversations in their former teams, and finally confirmed that each of them had been called earlier in the morning to assemble here for important instructions. Finally Tsunade came strolling through the main gate.

"Oi, everyone over here please!" she shouted while motioning them over to the gate. Everyone quickly moved on over. When all of them had assembled, Tsunade began to speak.

"Thank you everyone for coming out on such a short notice, but some very important changes are being made now, resulting from the current lack of experienced ninja Konoha possesses. I have made a decision that will change that around...hopefully."

At this comment, Naruto recalled the meeting he had with Tsunade and Kakashi-sensei. Tsunade glanced his way before she addressed the teams again. "As of right now you will be taken off of active duty for a few months unless instructed otherwise."

Everyone went wide-eyed, puzzling looks and Rock Lee exploding into a speech of his fear on losing his flames of youth. Naruto stood there calmly, which surprised everyone. Naruto raised his eyebrows while looking around at them. "What?"

Everyone turned around towards Tsunade again as she continued on. "And as of right now, you will have a new...well...instructor. This is Z" and she motioned with her hand to the empty spot next to her. After a few moments of nothing happening, everyone was aware of the Hokage's eye twitching at an insane speed. Finally a voice came from her other side progressively getting louder, "...you know Hokage-sama, then girls here do look pretty go-"

As Z came to stand beside the Hokage, he turned to see a group of ninja standing in front of him and Tsunade. Everyone turned to look at him, clearly confused at what the hell was going on. He raised his hand in greeting, "Yo!"

Naruto was the first to speak up, "Oi, baa-chan, is this concealed pervert really going to be our teacher"

"Yes, unfortunately..." Tsunade trailed off, while blowing out deep breaths to calm herself down.

The man referred to as Z rubbed his hands together. "Okay people before we began, I have to get a good feeling for your abilities. So lets move out to the training field to get some sparrin-"

Naruto interrupted Z while looking at Tsunade, "Baa-chan come on, this guy can't be any older then us!" At this comment Z cocked his head to the side, which was becoming a usual thing Tsunade noticed. She never really thought about it, but while the guy had a deeper voice, the way he acted and moved seemed to indicate a certain youth to his person.

"How old are you Z?" Tsunade asked while glancing over at him.

"Well, I don't see why it really matters, but im twenty. Now, I know you feel the need to ask me more pointless questions but I would like to get a move on" he said quickly before turning on his heel and walked towards the new training field that Tsunade stated he could use. He stopped by Tsunade's side though as she reached and grabbed his haori.

Tsunade picked up on the tone of his response, and it seemed like a few of the younger ninja did as well. The way he responded almost seemed to make her think that divulging any type of personal information was taboo. She would have to put off addressing that matter later as she needed him to get to working. He DEFINTELY was not cheap.

Tsunade turned to address the teams of younger ninja, "Well, don't you all have some training to do?"

Everyone filed out and Tsunade let go of Z. "He is the one in the black and orange" Z snorted before shrugging her touch away rather forcefully.

"Yeah, I figured as much," Z responded as he walked off after the teams of his newly assigned students.

Tsunade looked after him, feeling a flood of strange feeling and questions run through her mind. Yet, she couldn't figure out why she was so interested in knowing more about his guy. Everything about him was shrouded in some sort of mystery or a revealing that only led to another mystery. She shook her head and looked back at the village that was coming along nicely and breathed easier.

"_Feels good to get the brat out of my worries for a while. The way Z fought Kakashi...it showed a will that did not betray his reputation. This guy, he surely would protect Naruto, but to what ends would he go? Could she really put her FULL trust into a man she barely knew and just recently met?" _She tossed the thought away and glanced over to the Hokage Mountain. She smiled and knew that only the future held the answer, and it was time that she put her full faith in Naruto and his new mentor. _"Yes, its time for a new day and age, time for a new beginning..."_

_**AN:**_ Ok, first and foremost, I really want to apologize for my lack of an update the past couple weeks. I had finals spread over two weeks and it really sucked. Good news I finally got done with it though!

Second, I made this chapter a tad longer since I haven't update it a while. Pretty good bit of stuff. I apologize for any spelling, grammatical, and quotation errors. I wrote majority of the first part before finals so it may appear a little more polished. But 10 or 11 of the pages I wrote In one sitting. I just couldn't get up since I had thought so long about what to write (studying proved extremely difficult, as most of the time I sat there not learning anything as I made notes for the plot in a book I kept at my desk :P ), and I also wrote it from about 9-10 p.m., till about 5-6 a.m. Saying I wasn't tired would surely be a lie, so I apologize in advance if anything seems misconstrued or out of place, but I'm pretty sure I covered most of what I needed to or I will be soon enough :P .

Third, forget what I said in my intro about not putting out many A Ns, I just find it a place to kind of communicate with yall! Many thanks for yall's patience, ill try to have another chapter out around Xmas. Till then!


	5. Chapter 5

***Please Note, this is unedited/not proof read, may contain errors and the like. Will go back and edit later***

**AN: **Well, a new power supply and graphics card later, and with renewed inspiration I'm finally back with a new chapter. I thank you many times over for being patient as these past few weeks have been pretty hectic. Also, just to set a general benchmark for age, for the sake of easy understanding every one of the rookies is 17 years save for Neji and Tenten who are 18. Lee is approaching 18 and Naruto is the youngest of the rookies. Dancing around dates of birth is just not my type of thing, and I would rather just establish this now instead of playing with dates and throwing the audience off on a tangent or explanation of the current date/birthday/etc.

* * *

_Konoha, newly constructed training grounds..._

Everyone continued their wary walk out to the new training grounds. Whispers were strung about as conversation peaked over who exactly their new trainer was and how he was acting.

"Well, I don't know about you all, but this guy seems to be off his rocker," Ino said to the few who would bother to listen. Sakura and Hinata were nearby and merely nodded in agreement. "I mean come on, the guy dresses like the temperature was in the negatives and acts like he doesn't even care. He seems more interested in girls then he does in training us!" she exclaimed before checking to make sure no one was looking. After confirming she pushed her bosom slightly up.

"YOSH! A see this as a wonderful opportunity to exert our flames of youth!" came Rock Lee's over joyous voice, causing Neji, Tenten, Naruto, and Sai to back away from him from the awkwardness that seemed to creep from Lee's nonstop rants about "youth".

"Nah, I don't care," Naruto said with his nose in the air, "as soon as I kick his ass baa-chan will have to find a new trainer. The concealed perv won't even know what hit him!"

Neji gave an audible "hmph" while Kiba started talking from in front of Naruto, beside Shino and Choji. "Yeah yeah yeah, keep saying that. I'll do it first then you can have him after I've pounded him into the ground! Say Naruto, you still haven't told anyone how you managed to get Chunin." Choji kept munching away on his chips while Shino just simply shook his head from the over confident remark by the dog owner. Before Naruto could start they stumbled upon the new training field.

There were a few posts similar to the old ones but paths could be clearly seen throughout the main landing area. It looked like they probably wove in and out of the training area. A few containers containing who knew what were scattered about as well. Going through the far side of the area was a river probably only a few meters wide.

"Alright, so, who wants to go first?" Z questioned from somewhere over near the river.

Naruto took a step towards the new field to make the challenge but a blazing green color flew by him. "YOSH! Neji, Tenten, lets go!" Lee cried out as he ran up to where Z was now walking towards the middle of the field.

"Ah, teams of three yeah? This should be pretty interesting..." Z trailed off as Neji and Tenten came walking up with pretty serious looks. "Also do not hold back since I would get a faulty analysis of your abilities. What you do in your spar with me right now may result in a very large, life changing path in the future. I hold it to you all to come at me with exactly how you fight, both as a team and as a solo duelist" Z explained. At the questioning looks that spread throughout his small crowd he continued on.

"The spars will be very short as I don't want to run out of energy on anyone, but I want you to hit me with everything as a team. Then each of you will have a very quick session following the team session by yourself. After you are through, you are free to leave but we will meet back tonight at midnight" Z said, barely heard over the exclamatory and disagreeable shouts from his new pupils. "Oh come on, its not going to be that bad"

And so it went, Z started his circuit of testing all the teams.

Team Gai seemed to give him a fair amount of trouble. Z never could seem to maintain any sort of offense, not from them attacking, but simply because he couldn't seem to find a situation without using "_that". _Which of course was a mistake, since Lee had done away with his ankle weights and Neji had his Byakugan active. Then with the peppering of long range attacks from Tenten, this team was an excellent all around team. BUT, something was lacking and Z picked it up on multiple occasions. Lee and Neji functioned very well close range, but they both shared a similar weakness.I t was nearly undetectable in Neji's case, but it only took a few times before he succeeded after making a move for the long range jutsu user. Z was relying heavily on his Zephyr's Hold, as majority of the fight was up close in melee range.

After engaging them each in solo sparring he turned to the next group. Another Byakugan user, Hinata, and two other male chunin, Kiba and Shino. The fight was extremely similar and he noticed a pattern. There seemed to be two well trained taijutsu users with a long range jutsu user on both teams. The spar was going extremely well till he noticed the kunoichi of the group falling behind significantly in her previous speed. Z held up his hand right before Kiba started another Getsuga and Shino preparing a Bug Bomb. All eyes, including the still attending Team Gai, fell upon Z as he looked at Hinata who was heavily panting.

"I know this may seem to be none of my business, but this doesn't seem to be quite right" Z told Hinata, before everyone in the area felt a chilling breeze waft through the area. Sakura froze as her body tingled and looked to everyone else. All of her fellow shinobi had the same look, the look like they were being watched but they had no idea where from.

"Ah...I see," Z thoughtfully let out before turning to Naruto, "and you too huh, well I'm sure yall had 'fun' last night _training_" Naruto started to shiver, when he realized it was the same shiver he had midway through his spar with Hinata the other night. It wasn't the feeling he had at the end of the fight, that was something different. No, this was the same chill that he could feel running its way in and out of his and Hinata's spar.

Hinata looked as if she was about to collapse before Shino and Kiba came to her side to hold her up. Z could tell pure exhaustion from chakra depletion, and the girl was just to tired to even move. If he let her fight it could just push her further into exhaustion. He would have to spar her later tonight before his...decisions.

Z went ahead and sparred Kiba and Shino. Before he completed, he had already noted the same similar weakness that seemed to lie in Team Gai's build. Z motioned Ino and Chouji forward and Ino explained the whole situation with Shikamaru's promotion. _"So far this is leaning to working with the original setup I had planned for this whole job" _Z thought as he assumed his ready stance.

Chouji and Ino worked fairly well with each other. Chouji maintained an aggressive defense while Ino would use various tricks with projectiles and tags to run Z around. Only, Z was fighting far to lazy and careless to recognize the trap before he heard 'Mind Transfer Jutsu' shouted out as he stepped on a tag that sprang up and rooted him in place by his chakra. Another presence could be felt briefly, a matter of only a second before his will rose up and gave a large mental shove to the other presence.

Z came to, in the same spot. Foolishness and a carefree attitude surely invited him to that trap. Well, that and not going using many of his jutsu and _that_ really kept biting him in the rear pretty bad. He cocked his head to the side while viewing Ino rising from Chouji's back, where she must have been leaning judging from their close proximity to each other. "Excellent use of intellect. You recognized my attitude and capitalized on it" Z said before he recognized Ino in exhaustion. That was obviously a last resort, and he _had_ told them to use everything. She would never had been able to pull that jutsu off in a 1v1. Z told Ino to take a break for a few minutes while he sparred Chouji. After both spars were done he motioned Naruto and his team over. All of the shinobi were still in attendance. _"Odd,"_ Z thought to himself, _"I told them to leave, I wonder why they are still here..."_

Z was instantly reeling from the shock of the force the black and orange clad ninja and pink haired kunoichi threw upon him in taijutsu. Quick use of Suitons had them pushed away and at long range before a rain of ink dog looking illustrations were attacking him. The battle went on and noticed that perhaps the weakness in the first two teams was not present, till he saw the look on the now-flying artist dropping ink illustrations of needles on him. No emotion, not even a hint as Z closed in on Sakura while Naruto formed a Rasengan with his clone not far away. Sakura's hands turned a bluish green after a few exchanging kicks, punches, and blocks and Z felt a large chakra approaching from behind.

"_No, there it is from Naruto. But this other guy, he doesn't seem to react the same as the others,"_ Z thought, _"none the less, teaching him the opposite is beneficial as well. Yeah, my training will be a great benefit to them all."_

After Sakura and Sai had sparred Z, he put his hand up to Naruto before Naruto lept into the spar. "While I have been secluded for a time, I know the feel of someone who is hiding something," Z said while addressing Naruto, "and I happen to _know_ for sure you are hiding it"

Naruto put on a cocky grin before calling a shadow clone and issuing him an order mentally. "Oi, concealed perv, lets go!"

For a few minutes, it seemed the same way he fought in the team fight, until Naruto's chakra changed. As Naruto opened his eyes he saw it and knew what it was. He had heard rumors of it, but seeing it for the first time was something else. Sure, he had felt what it was the other night, but seeing it was something else. "About time. So this is Sage Mode huh?" Z said.

The chill came again and Naruto could feel a waver in his inbound natural energy chakra. Quickly clamping down and warming his body with his chakra, the flow returned to normal but only with the sustained heat he was generating. The fight continued, with slower paced but heavy hitting taijutsu. Each blow look liked it would shatter someone to nothingness in a heartbeat. Naruto could feel his movement being slowed somehow. He backed away and called two clones to his side. The real Naruto lowered his hand before flooding it with wind and a shrieking noise began to fill the arena. "You want me to not hold back right?" Naruto said as the now spiraling, shuriken-shaped jutsu took full form.

Z felt instant danger, and knew instantly this justsu would be the end of him if it hit. Z had one choice, and while he knew he would regret it, it was either use it or else.

A quick flare of hand signs, totally different from the previous ones he had used in the previous spars were weaved.

"Blizzard Release: Freezing Winds!"

Naruto was in the middle of shouting his jutsu's name, the Futon: Rasenshuriken, when below freezing temperatures could be felt and winds rushed forward. Naruto's arm was immediately locked in place as he tried to thrust his hand forward against the bitter cold winds pushing him back.

"Stop! Thats enough!" Z called out to Naruto, clearly leaving Naruto disappointed by the look on his face.

"Oh come on, I was about to knock you out concealed perv! You just ended it from being to scared!" Naruto exclaimed while jumping up and down.

"Oh, there is no doubt had that thing hit me I would have been done for. Thats why I ended it, I wanted to see you pushed to the limit, that was all. From that, I can gather not only your physical strength but your mental and emotional strength as well" Z replied.

Ino piped up after being the first to reel in her shock. "What in the world was that?"

Z looked over to the distant girl. "Something I would rather not explain" Z replied with a mixture of dispiritedness and depression in obvious reference to his jutsu.

He waved the others over since they were still there and decided the next part could go ahead and be had out now, the explaining and future training plans he had.

"Now as all of you know, or I would hope all you would know by now, that this was a chance for me to analyze your strengths, weaknesses, emotions, well you know" Z said, while drawing a few skeptical looks after he said emotions.

"As ninja, we are all susceptible to different weaknesses and emotions. We mainly focus our strengths so that we can become more proficient in our preferred style" Z continued, still in that depressed tone. "What many ninja forget to do is train their weaknesses, as well as their emotions. And many of you that are of the same sex seem to have the same weakness as well as emotional state, or something similar to each other's. So, I have decided to take my plans and change them, but before I do I want you to tell me what my weakness is"

At the silent and panting looks he sighed, "Oh come on" Z said. Z turned to Neji and Shino. "You both saw it, and Hyuga-sama you about took advantage of it"

Neji was about to object to the formality before he just crossed his arms and thought that he would rather have the conversation in private with Z. "You hate taijutsu Z-sensei, so much that you developed a counter taijutsu style of fighting up close. I predicted a pattern in your weaving and tried to seize the opportunity. Also, even though you have shown some offensive jutsu your tendency to rely heavily on your defense and defensive jutsu suggests your offense is nowhere close in comparison."

Z knew he had figured out the first, but to see his second weakness so easily...he turned to see the rest of the group and going by the looks on a few, including the pink haired kunoichi and the ink user, they had picked up on the second weakness as well. _"This is no ordinary group of shinobi, is it Tsunade...-sama?" _

"Right. Well, this training is going to be unlike any other. I will introducing you all to partner training. From this point on, I will have you training with only a single partner for a certain period of time. Then we will focus on running standard four person cells with different combinations of our two person partnerships. So you will actually end up learning each and every persons strengths, as well as learning how to combine them in order to produce an effective team. Of course you will know your partner far better then anyone else, but you have to learn to work as a bigger unit sometimes to get things done. Then after that training, we will focus on fighting as a team of twelve." Z explained.

"There are central reasons around each type of training. With the group of twelve training we will learn how to focus on survival and take down of enemies when greatly outnumbered. With the four man cell groups you will basically go over many of the same things you learned in your original setups with your previous senseis, only a little more in depth. And with the partnerships," Z began, changing tones slightly, sounding slightly sad but serious, "you will learn the many things necessary in order to make it in this world. And only you alone can define that."

"Wait a moment Z-sensei, you said we. You mean your going to be training with us?" Sakura asked.

"Yep! And by the way, just call me Z. I'm barely older then you all and you calling me sensei makes me feel old!" Z replied, clearly in a better mood then before. "Your dismissed. And you, the one wearing the shoot-me-now orange," Z said while pointing at Naruto, "make sure Hyuga-sama here gets something to eat and rest. Late night training can make people exhaused you know?"

Naruto was bordering on rage directed at Z before he glanced over at Hinata who was turned over lying on the ground. The attempt to hide her bright red blush taking over her skin was failing, and the fact they were still around their friends only made it worse. Naruto's jaw dropped, still oblivious to the fact she was blushing, and currently thought she had gone unconscious from lack of rest.

"Hinata, don't worry! We will go see baa-chan and make sure everything is ok!" Naruto said as he and Neji managed to get Hinata to her feet.

Ino was the first one forward, trying to muffle a few giggles that were about to escape her mouth but with her mind clearly on some gossip. "Its ok Naruto. Sakura, Tenten, and I will make sure everything is ok. How about you and the rest all go train?"

Z thought he heard someone mutter "baka" while there was a few giggles from some of the girls. "Oh, and by the way" Z said as he got up while pulling out a book.

"The partnerships are gonna be composed of a guy and a girl," Z said while throwing on a sinister smile, "Have fun!"

Everyone froze and stared at each other as Z disappeared in a swirl of snow, before multiple blushes were exchanged. The only ones with differences were Shino who stood there motionless and Lee who had his mouth wide open with hearts in his eyes.

Kiba and Naruto stood there just looking around at everyone. "What?" they both said in unison.

* * *

_Barbeque Pit, Konoha..._

"No, and you no what, that's a definite no. There is no way I can pull something like that off. I only mentioned her because she holds the key to possible locations of the enemy. We are currently trying to get her to reveal info, she is not going to be used in your little training program" a busty Hokage said while trying to put as much authority behind her claim as possible. Z sat opposite to her, not touching his food nor his sake. The Hokage didn't seem to mind it though as she kept reaching across and taking it from him anyways.

"I'm pretty sure she can do both at once, and anyways this could be good for her and you" Z said while poking the chicken on his plate with his chopsticks. The Hokage gave him an quizzical expression and Z took it as his cue.

"Right now she probably has no one that trusts her, and she probably has zero trust in anyone. If you let me pair her up with someone in my training and let her at least become some sort of temporary Konoha ninja, it might let her trust a little easier. That in turn would possibly allow yall access to whatever she seems to be holding back from yall. Of course, we do run the risk of her taking advantage our trust and defecting, but I don't think she has many places to go so its pretty unlikely" Z said.

Tsunade sat there in drenched in thought. It was definitely risky, but at the pace they were going there was no way they would have any solid information from this girl. She kept delaying, dodging questions, and playing games with the interrogation squad. Who knows, maybe this...brat could get something out of her.

"Fine, I'll see to it. It shouldn't be much of a problem since even the elders are growing tired if her games and delays. Plus her abilities could come in handy I guess. I will have Karin's papers processed and try to have her out before your little pow wow tonight. But it seems your still a girl short, but I may even have another solution to your request. Your going to owe me big time for helping you with this, so how about a cut in your payment, or...how about revealing to me as to why your here doing this?" the Hokage questioned before down a quick gulp of sake.

"I'll take the cut in payment. Who you got in mind?" Z asked while dodging the second option, perhaps with a tad bit too much curiosity to cover his saracasm.

"I sent out letters to all the Kages to ask them for a visit to the Fire country, and Konoha in particular. We are trying to all play nice but it seems like the Hidden Mist is acting on a grudge I can't quite comprehend. Anyways, its pretty soon to gather again as we just had the meeting, but things need to start moving in a more positive direction" Tsunade said with a hint of melancholy in her voice. She looked up and out of the window and began to think about the peace she wanted to help build for those she truly cared for. _"And, for the ones that I have lost...especially you two..." _Tsunade thought as three birds drifted in and out of sight of the window.

Z looked out the window but instantly recoiled from dwelling on those thoughts. _"No, not here, especially in front of her..."_

"So, tell me oh grand Hokage, what do you have in mind?" Z asked.

She smiled, something that seemed to be coming just a little easier with the way the world seemed to be turning as of lately. "Well, there are going to be a few kunoichi, highly skilled, coming from these various countries and who knows..." Tsunade explained as she continued to drink on and Z slouched away in the corner of the booth pretending to not care, taking a shot of sake as well.

* * *

_Konoha, Clothing store, shopping district..._

"WHAT!"

Ino stood there with her mouth wide open, alongside Sakura and Tenten who wore just as surprised expressions as Ino.

"You and Naruto were out late at night, with no one around, and you both just trained! I will never understand that boy" Ino projected while turning to look at the clothes rack they had just moved to that contained female ninja attire, "but I will give it to him, he has become quite the looker". They all had just come to a clothing store that was nearby the place they had gone to eat. They all had worn the same clothes for what seemed like since their promotions and all had agreed that maybe it was a time for change. Hinata seemed fairly eager to hold onto her secret about the training with Naruto, but Ino pried it out of her.

"Ano, it was actually quite nice and relaxing. I liked it..." Hinata said while drifting off in thought of that night, and trying to write Ino's last comment off as just a simple comment.

"Hinata I had no idea that you and Naruto were so close, I didn't think you both talked all that often" Sakura asked, a hint of suspicion and possibly jealousy lacing her words.

"Yeah Hinata, I had no idea the both of you even hung out," Tenten said while looking over a more formal Chinese styled top.

"Um, well, we aren't really that close, but I wouldn't min-" Hinata said. She caught herself but by the stares that she got from the other girls, all it did was reaffirm their suspicions that Hinata still had strong feelings toward Naruto.

"You know, Hinata, your going to have to tell that idiot someday. He is so oblivious-" Ino got out before Sakura elbowed her out of the way and pulled something off the rack.

"This will do just right! Hinata take this while we get our clothes to try on. After this lets do a little bit of training before we head out for the night" Sakura said. Little to say, the store owner was an extremely happy woman after the four girls walked out of the store.

* * *

_Undisclosed Location..._

Drips were audible as were the echos coming from deep within the cave. A figure with what looked like a venus fly trap encompassing a multicolored head stood off to the side and gazing down into a cave landing over a handrail.

"Not fully grown, but soon enough they will be. Of course there is the training and the possibility of speeding things up" a serious tone bouncing off the wall rang out.

"Right, surely they will be ready in no time!" a more joyful chuckle let out but coming from the same figure.

"Shut up, lets get back to-" the figure said before turning around to gaze at a man with jet black hair and a black coat. He wore a bandage around his eyes, but was not seemingly having a hard time finding his way around.

"Zetsu, I've grown tired of these games," the man spoke, "either I leave or I begin to train my new eyes. Tell Madara we start when he gets back" saying the last few words with authority.

"Of course, I will let him know Sasuke. If you use them prematurely though, you will suffer serious consequences, I hope you are up for this" echoing from the darker side of Zetsu.

"I'll fetch him, you guard the punk!" the white side of Zetsu said as he broke off and disappeared into the ground.

"Why so soon Sasuke? We have plenty of time till we are ready to move out? Just relax until we are ready to start moving things forward" Zetsu said with a curious look on his face.

"Because," Sasuke started while moving into an angry, "Naruto is going to pay for defending that village. The very village that destroyed Itachi and the Uchiha clan. I will show them why they should never have made that choice, and to show Naruto that he made the wrong one."

The cloth around Sasukes eyes began to appear wet, but he turned away and walked down the hall back to his quarters. Zetsu had picked up on the reason, but there was an ulterior motive. No one throws out all the cards on the table that early in the game.

* * *

_Konoha Training field..._

"Yeah, I bet that was all you were doing was training. Pervert" Kiba said as he went through some light taijutsu sparring with Naruto. Neji nearly choked on whatever it was he was eating underneath a tree nearby. Lee and a few of the others had broken off and had started doing some light excercises, nothing to big since no one had any idea what was supposed to be planned for tonight.

"Yeah right, your the pervert for even thinking that!" Naruto exclaimed while throwing a slightly more powerful then necessary right undercut that caught Kiba in the stomach, doubling him over.

"Come on!" Kiba said through labored breaths, "you know I'm just playing" he continued while waving Naruto off.

"Yeah yeah, whatever you said dog boy. Say, why are you so interested in her anyways?" Naruto inquired while eying Kiba carefully for a reaction. All he got was a shrug of the shoulders and a turn of the head to look off at the river.

"Just curious, I guess," Kiba replied as he turned all the way around and faced where no one could see him.

"Wait a minute, are you telling me..." Naruto started before Kiba slammed a hand over Naruto's mouth.

"NO!" Kiba shouted before getting quiet. The slight red in Kiba's face was enough to tell Naruto that something could possibly be up, but he couldn't be to sure. _"You know, I don't think any of us guys have __at least talked about being with any girls" _Naruto drifted off into thought about Sakura. But then he stumbled into thinking about Hinata and the rest of the girls. _"I wonder what they look like with no-"_ started to think before pausing for a fraction of a second. _"Wait...why am I thinking about them like that!" _Naruto mentally screamed as he shook his head back and forth to erase whatever it was taking over his mind that caused him to think about the opposite sex. _"Especially with everyone around"_

Kiba took his hand away and looked over at the others. Lee was clearly taking the "light sparring" a little to far as his eyes flamed on with the passion of his youth. Neji seemed to be in deep thought about something. Naruto motioned his head towards Neji and the duo moved over to him.

"You know Neji, all we did was spar the other night. I promise we didn't do anything!" Naruto pleaded as soon as he was standing in front of where Neji was sitting.

Neji's opened wide before he closed them and shook his head. "No, It wasn't that I was thinking on. Hinata needs whatever training she can get, and you really seem like you can help her" Neji replied seriously before turning his head back towards where they had taken Hinata.

"Ok, if you say so I guess..." Naruto said while scratching the back of his head, "so then...what were you thinking about?"

Neji narrowed his gaze before shutting his eyes, "Nothing in particular, anyways don't you think we need to chill out and get back to the village? We should see about getting some rest before the night begins."

"Hmmph, I could go on no sleep!" Kiba yelled before turning around and throwing his nose in the air. Naruto smirked and looked to the sky. _"Sasuke, why can't you be here, enjoying all this? I understand revenge and why you seek it, but can you not see..." _Naruto thought as he reeled back to reality and turned to see the others walking over to them, done with their training. Sai was emotionless, while Chouji was nearly crawling with a chip bag in his hand and drenched in sweat. Lee marched with the others and they stood there with a few heavy breaths, barely audible.

Naruto displayed a small grin.

"_No, Sasuke, you chose your path of a ninja just as I have chosen mine. I will prove to you there are other routes of getting strong, other reasons to be a ninja"_

Naruto nodded and motioned to the group, the very group that he would throw his life on the line in order to ensure their survival.

* * *

_Later that day, dusk, same Konoha Training Grounds..._

"_Eight trigrams: Empty Palm!"_

A strong vacuum of air pushed Z away when he lunged forward to strike at Hinata. No doubt, this fight wasn't was it was suppose to be. She wasn't the same, the same while fighting _him_. The only thing Z could not understand was why she would hold back in a spar, where he was trying to assess her skills, her true skills.

"Hinata-sama, you really need to stop doing that," Z said as he landed with one hand planted for support. True, she was a great deal stronger then he previously thought, but there was potential. Hidden potential.

"Anou, Z-sensei, what do you mean," Hinata replied while still standing in her traditional Gentle Fist stance. She couldn't say exactly why, but she was having a hard time trusting Z. Maybe it was because he was everything Naruto wasn't. _"This man, he is so closed off, so scared or embarrassed to even reveal his face. On top of that he seems cold, and in a way more deep then just his jutsu. The way he acts is like hes hiding something, yet he is polite when speaking. Just who is he?"_

"Please, please stop calling me that Hyuuga-sama. I assure you that I won't care, but you know good and well what I'm talking about. You are holding back," Z paused before continuing, debating on his next words carefully. "You aren't fighting me, like you fought Naruto the other night"

She froze, and finally realized. The chilled winds, the cold temperature that she picked up more then once when sparring with Naruto; it all added up. He was there.

"Well, you s-s-see...ummm..." Hinata mumbled out while trying to think of a reason to give him before she was saved by the shouting and yelling coming from the opening of the new practice field.

"OI! Cut it out Sai!" Naruto yelled as he came flying out out of the woods with what appeared to be dark colored snakes.

"Huh, so he IS scared of something I see," Z said from behind Hinata as he began to walk up to her. She released a small giggle and together they walked over to meet the rest of the team. Snakes were bursting all over a fallen Naruto but the ink just changed to the black on Naruto's chunin vest and cloak. When they all met up, Z motioned to the river running through the practice field, where they proceeded to move to. Shortly upon stepping to the river, Sai moved to step beside Z.

"Z-san, I'm afraid that I have been called back to Anbu for a short while. The Hokage has assured me that-"

"-you will be working in close proximity and heavily involved with whatever we may be doing. I have talked to the Hokage concerning that and it is fine. I will see about finding you a partner in Anbu, although I will probably be denied since that information is highly classified." Z said while finishing Sai's sentence. The slightly startled looks of the others in the group where enough to tell him that this was unexpected, and maybe even frustration coming from Naruto and Sakura.

"I see, very well, good luck with the training. I wish you all...good luck, is it?" Sai said with a weird grin, one that held some emotion. Hinata could see the frustation that Naruto wore and while it hurt to see Naruto frustrated over someone who he was coming to know fairly well, hopefully Naruto would eventually come to terms with it.

Sakura on the other hand, was rather bothered. "Z-san, this isn't right. Why is it that Sai can't join us in this? He is a part of this group! I just-"

"It's ok Sakura. This was my decision as well, but I only agreed to it since I could work alongside you all in a way. Don't worry, I will be in contact" Sai said as he began to walk away, throwing his hand over his head to wave goodbye to everyone. He disappeared into the shadows a few seconds later, before all attention of the rookies were focused on Z.

"...anyways," Z said while letting out a breath, "I first paired you into guy-girl partnerships because it seems the guys in your squads tend to be a tad overprotective of the girl"

At this, most of the guys looked among themselves with startled and slightly sheepish expressions. The girls, wearing furrowed brows in slight anger, stood there giving the guys stares that would surely kill if they could radiate intent.

"Soooo, its time for you all to come to terms with trusting each other. With this setup you will have to rely on your teammate and treat one another as equals. I'm sure you will get to know each other just fine, but I didn't base these pairings on personality. You all are shinobi, and as such I paired you based on your preference of fighting style"

Z shrugged and turned away from the group and towards the river where the moons light was radiating off the middle of the clear water.

"You think you could teach us trust? Are you serious concealed perv?" Naruto shouted, clearly angry. "You damn hypocrite, look at you! Going on about trust yet you have shown us you don't care enough about us to trust us! Your basing the next months, possibly a year of our lives off a few spars? You just want to be over and done with this as soon as possible and you know it! You-"

"Enough," Z replied, as a quick, deadly cold chill wafted through the field before it was gone, "I trust you enough to do your job and do it right with whoever I assign you. My life is none of your business punk so let it go"

Everyone sat there startled at the sudden outburst from Naruto. Sakura could see he was obviously frustrated, but why? _"Maybe it could be what this guy is doing, trying to take the role of a teacher. Naruto has been through so many, and he has been kind of distant since Jiraiya-sama."_

Hinata stood there motionless with her hands over her mouth, wishing she could say something to Naruto to calm him down. _"Why is he acting like this? Maybe I should talk to him...no that would be a horrible idea, well maybe..."_

"Anyways, I'm done with explanations, or the punk may go haywire again" Z said cooly while Naruto fumed. "I'd rather the pairings explain themselves with time. It's best to find each other's weaknesses, compensate for them, and learn how to cope with each others strengths. Now, for the pairings..." Z said before turning back around to face them all while withdrawing a paper with writing on it from behind his back.

"Choji Akimichi and Tenten, you are Pair 1" Z said while bringing his eyes up from the paper. Everyone froze.

"_What! How could he possibly think this would work? There is no way they will survive in a fight if the both of them are paired up," _Neji thought to himself as he stood next to Lee.

"Tenten you must take the power of youth to the next level," Lee said seriously as he turned and placed a hand on Tenten's shoulder, who was still consumed in shock. She slowly turned to Chouji who had stopped eating his chips.

Chouji looked back and gave a slight smile, but chips slipped from the corners of his mouth. The rookies all gave a series of laughs before turning back to their thoughts, most of them thinking the same thing: there was no way to predict who they were going to get paired up with. Z motioned Pair 1 to the far left.

"Pair 2 will be Kiba Inuzuka and Hinata Hyuga" Z said firmly while writing something down on the paper.

Her hopes plummeted as she looked over at Kiba, who was grinning from ear to ear. Kiba howled and looked over to Hinata.

"Isn't this great Hinata! We will dominate easily!" Kiba said enthusiastically. Hinata let out a small smile, not letting her disappointment show all the while trying to beat herself up for letting her hopes get to high. She chanced a glance over to Naruto who smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Kiba threw his arm around her shoulders and walked over to stand beside Choji and Tenten. Naruto's smile softened and it looked like he zoned out before Sakura tapped him on the shoulder, nodding over to Z.

"Lets see, Neji Hyuga and Karin will be designated Pair 3" Z said. Z looked over to the forest line and made a summoning motion with his hand. Someone came out from the upper level of a tree and scurried over to where the group was by the river. As she walked up, all eyes were on her.

"Yo Z, this chick is an enemy, what are you doing bringing her out here!" Kiba barked out while moving to approach the newly introduced girl. She had red hair and eyes, and wore the same simple ninja garb the day they found her. It almost looked like she could be a scientist.

Before an infuriated Karin could finish her sentence about not caring about Sasuke or the others, Z turned back to Kiba, "It's ok, I have confirmation from the Hokage and all legalities are done away with. Plus, she's too stubborn for the Intel Division, so we may as well put her to work.

Neji's eyes were hard and he wore an extremely disapproving look. "Z-san, I'm sorry but I can't be put with the enemy. I will have to drop from the training if I am paired with, _her_" Neji said in all seriousness. Much of how he was feeling was echoing through the minds of the rest of the rookies.

"Then you refuse a direct order from the Hokage, and not even I would like to see the consequence of disregarding this order" Z said as he started to think that bringing her out here may have been a mistake. _"No, this is the right choice. They NEED to be together, for the team to succeed"_

All the rookies looked around at each other, before Lee spoke out with a voice of reason. "Yosh, even though we may not trust her, are we so wrong to give her a chance? If Sasuke could go from being an ally to an enemy, what makes us think that enemies can't become allies?" At that comment, Naruto and Sakura looked down at the ground in thought. _"It hurts to think about, but its true. I know that Naruto still thinks of him as a friend, but he was ready to kill me...how can I still consider him as anything other then an enemy?"_ Sakura thought as she fought back and forth with her feelings concerning the one man that she thought she once loved. Or maybe still did?

Hinata looked over at her cousin who seemed to be offset by Lee's unusual sense of normal behavior. They had gotten particularly close ever since the run in with Pein and her own near death experience, and she knew the look that started to form on Neji's face. The same look that meant he was looking beyond his own sight, extending to see how others thought. Or at least trying to understand just what someone else may be trying to say.

Lee turned to Neji and looked him directly in the eye, "We all know looks can be decieving, but all of us are in this together. So, lets let our flames of youth burn!" Lee exclaimed as he clasped his friend on the shoulder. A smirk slowly came to Neji's mouth as Naruto voiced his agreement loudly.

"I will be watching you, always, Karin" Neji said as he turned to Karin as his Byakugan blazed to life. "There is nothing that you can do that I won't see, and this is your only warning"

Karin squinted behind her glasses before turning her head up high, and proceeded to march over to stand beside Pair 2.

Finally after what seemed like hours, Neji joined her and Pair 3 finally met to stand alongside Pair 2 in silence. Naruto stumbled back from his thoughts as Neji began to move. He looked around and realized that only Sakura was standing beside him. _"No way, I'm going to be with Sakura! We all ready know each other, this training will be so easy!"_

Letting everything settle in for the rookies, Z cleared his throat and looked back down at the piece of paper in his hand. _"Well, Z old buddy, lets prepare for the worst" _Z thought to himself as he looked at the remaining pairs.

"So, Naruto," Z said as he looked up from the paper, "your going to be paired up with Ino and you will both be Pair 4"

Naruto's eyes went white and he slowly turned around to his side opposite from where Sakura was standing. As he finally faced Ino, he fell flat on his back from his sheer lack of awareness of the remaining people, as well as getting his hopes up of being with Sakura. The amount of laughter that followed drowned out all other sounds aside from Ino yelling for everyone to cut it out.

"Nani! Are you serious concealed perv? I have to be with her!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Sure," Z said as he started to calm himself from the previous laughing fit, "everything should mesh ok"

"Yeah, if I don't kill him first" Ino said with sarcasm as he she walked over to Pair 3 with her arms crossed and eyes drilling daggers for Naruto to shut up. Z could have sworn he heard some mumbling about being put through hell on purpose from Naruto, but he shook his head and took a look over at Sakura who was standing with a quizzical look. Then as realization dawned on her, she heard Lee yell something and appear at her side in a heartbeat.

Sakura slowly looked up at Lee, who had hearts dancing in his eyes while standing at attention. Z chuckled while there were a few muffled laughs from the already paired rookies.

"I'm sorry Rock Lee, but you will be meeting your partner very soon, possibly tomorrow" Z said, bringing all eyes to him. Sakura looked relieved for only a second, before turning back to Z and putting her hand on her hips.

"Please tell me your joking!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Nah, me and you are pair 5," Z said casually before turning to the now downtrodden Lee, "Lee-san it will be ok, you will be training in no time!" Z pieced together why Lee may have been a litlte unhappier from the way Lee looked at Sakura, but the way they fought he could only see disaster if they fought together.

"Now, you all have your partners. We will meet up a few days a week to practice working different four person cell combinations, but when you train as pairs it is up for you all to decide. You are all capable of deciding for yourselves when the best time to train is. Remember though, don't just train for yourself, train for all those around you as well. When we have the four person cells down pat, we will move on to working in unison as one large fighting group" Z explained, while turning to talk to them all to gauge their reactions. Everyone looked pretty serious, which was a pretty good indicator that things could work out.

"Hmph, quit acting like you care concealed perv, we good to go yet?" Naruto asked.

"Sure punk, just remember, the more you know about your partner's fighting style the better. Sakura can you stay for a moment?" Z asked.

At her nod the rest of the group turned to leave. As they went Z looked over to Hinata who was walking behind most of the group. She looked at Naruto who was causing some sort of ruckus in the front of the group, before he suddenly realized what was going on. He mentally hit himself on the head for not seeing the obvious indication, and he may have just made a huge mistake with the partnerships. _"I will have to talk to the...Hokage about this"_

"Sakura, whatever jutsu I use, or fighting style I show you must never tell anyone. This is extremely important" Z said with a firm tone. "This includes the Hokage. I will show the others eventually with the team training and all, but I want it to be kept within the group, ok?"

"Sure, not like I would tell anyways. Is that all?" Sakura asked.

"Yep, I'll see ya tomorrow" Z said as he turned and disappeared into a shadow.

Sakura thought to herself about what he had just told her, but shrugged it off and went to catch up with her friends.

* * *

_Streets of Konoha..._

"Whatever Kiba, later" Naruto said with his hands in his pockets. _"Wait, me and Hinata are the only ones left. Neji left to walk with Lee and Tenten. And we all ready passed all the other houses" _He turned to see Hinata silently walking behind him.

"Oi Hinata, you don't have to be so quiet!" Naruto exclaimed while stopping a moment to let her walk up beside him. She reflexively started playing with her pointer fingers while locating a response for Naruto.

"Anou, s-s-sorry Naruto-kun," Hinata replied, while looking for something to promote conversation, "um, how are you liking having Ino as your training partner?"

"Are you kidding? This is going to be a nightmare!" Naruto yelled while throwing his hands up in the air. "I swear, the concealed perv is doing this to torture me"

"Ah, Naruto-kun," Hinata surprisingly got out without a fumble, "maybe Z really thinks that you two are the best types to match up to be partners"

"Hmm, I don't know" a defeated Naruto said. He turned to face her, and she could feel her cheeks heat up a little already. "But Hinata, if your doing anything tomorrow, do you think we could...you know...talk?"

As her heart skipped a beat, Hinata regained her composure through pure willpower. "Anou, s-sure Naruto-kun," she replied, and then suddenly had a great, er maybe horrible idea. _"Oh just say it and get it over with, what do you have to lose!"_ Hinata thought.

"Umm...w-would you like to come over to the compound sometime tomorrow?" Hinata barely whispered to where Naruto could pick it up. She winced and quickly looked away. _"Great now hes going to say n-"_

"Sure, sounds like a plan" Naruto said, again with the same smile from the ramen store. _"What is with that smile?" _Hinata thought.

"O-ok then," Hinata said as they approached the Hyuga gates, "how about in the morning sometime?"

"Sounds good, I will see you then," Naruto replied, "good night Hinata" And with that Naruto disappeared onto the rooftops.

"Goodnight, Naruto-kun" Hinata whispered before turning to go through the gate.

**AN:** I wrote this on and off when I had the time to these past weeks. Some things may be out of order, some stuff may not make much sense from lack of explanation, and the like since I wrote this in spurts. Hopefully its not to bad. I'm just putting it out right now and I will go back and edit it later. I kept trying to realistically give Z a crash course in the rookies styles in the fastest way possible so I could get back to the NaruHina, while at the same time giving a taste of what kind of fighter he is. Sorry I really couldn't get into Madara and Sasuke this chapter, and it will be kind of villain-light again next chapter as we find out how everyone does through their first weeks of training and a fewextra things that come up! Feeling I may be getting my fluff on here in a little bit :P. Lets see who Konoha brings in next chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer: you know the drill, i dont own this shizzle, Kishi is the man and owns Naruto.  
_

* * *

_Early A/N: This is completely unedited, 99% sure it contains inconsistencies since this chapter was written over nearly a year and a half in intervals, so please make me aware if something is out of place or doesn't make sense. Sorry for the wait, and enjoy!  
_

* * *

_Early Morning, Konoha streets..._

Black and orange blazed past a rooftop, disturbing the dew hanging from a newly placed electrical line. To many he was the hero of the village, but at the moment he felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

"_Just how do I say it? I have never talked about something like this before with anyone, not even Baa-chan. How do you tell someone..." _and Naruto let the thought drift off into space as he pulled up on the Hyuga grounds. The two newly placed guards, at least going off their absence last night, eyed Naruto carefully as he walked up to greet them.

While Naruto was well respected by many, it seemed like he had a fair bit to go with the Hyuga family to gain their absolute trust. The guards activated their Byakugans and stiffened slightly as Naruto stopped a few feet in front of them.

"Oi, is Hinata around?" Naruto asked.

"Hinata-sama is currently unavailable Naruto-san, I think it would be for your benefit if you came back another time" the guard on the left said seriously.

"Hinata told me to meet her sometime this morning, and I really need to talk to her!" Naruto began to get a little warm under the collar. "It's really important!"

"I'm sorry, but if you don't leave Naruto-san we will be forc-" the guard on the right said before a reassuring hand on his shoulder brought his attention to the girl beside him without needing to look at her to know who it was. Both guards turned immediately and bowed to the Hyuga heiress before apologizing for not detecting her approach before that moment.

"No, it's ok" Hinata said with a hint of crimson in her cheeks, "you can let him on through, I will talk to my father about his arrival and intentions later"

"Hai, Hinata-sama" both guards replied in unison before permitting Naruto through the compound door. He looked around as he passed through and noticed that there was still a fair bit of construction going on.

"They still aren't done with building everything yet?" Naruto asked while gazing over the building being built.

"N-No, we still have a fair bit to go until we have everything back that was lost in the...attack" Hinata replied while looking down at the ground before beginning to retrace the day, for what must have been the upteenth time.

"Well don't worry, when I'm around I'll make sure to come over and help! I will just make a ton of clones!" Naruto exclaimed while presenting her with one of the big goofy grins he commonly wore.

She giggled and turned to her left where most of the construction had stopped and over the top of a wall he could make out a few smaller tree tops. Hinata pushed through the door and they emerged into a garden full of life. New trees had been planted and new flowers had been grown in various areas while some were still budding. But, in the middle stood a moderately sized kobushi magnolia tree in mid bloom. Underneath the tree were a few benches and places to sit, while a moat of fresh, clear water went in a semi-circle around the sitting area.

"Wow, this is amazing, I had no idea we even had this kind of stuff around here" Naruto said as he rambled on, observing the peaceful scenery as a trickle of water could be heard but not immediately seen.

Hinata made her way over to the area under the magnolia tree in the middle of the garden and sat down on the ground facing the tree. Naruto walked over to settle beside her and for perhaps the first time in his life, noticed how really beautiful Hinata was. The light pursued through the half grown, overhead tree and laid itself gently on her whole being. It radiated off her hair and bounced-

"_Focus Naruto, you know it's not the time for these thoughts" _Naruto thought to himself.

As he sat down he took a few moments to try and compose whatever thoughts to help convey what exactly he was going to try to say. It was a difficult feeling to describe, and he had no idea what it was. The only thing he could do right now was recognize that feeling as the one thing he knew, and that was the desire to protect.

Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling some of the anxiety leave. He turned to Hinata who had her head at an angle so she could see him out of one eye if she needed to, but her gaze indicated that she was probably off in thought. "Hinata..." Naruto spoke softly.

Hinata looked up and met his gaze, the ever-blue eyes that seemed to shimmer with hope and happiness. Only now, they weren't the same..._why?_

"You know what I came here to talk about, right?" he asked, Naruto's voice changing from the cheery tone of a few minutes ago to a more serious, almost melancholy tone.

Hinata shook her head yes, since she kind of picked up on what it may have been last night with the way that Naruto worded his request.

Naruto started to have second thoughts about this, but realized it was too important, and it had to be said...

"Hinata, when I fought Pain, I realized who I was. I mean...who I really was. The danger I pose to my friends and village, the target I represent as the Yondaime's son, and possibly one of the most sought after targets ever" Naruto quietly explained before pausing for a second. At the mention of being the Yondaime's son her eyes widened as Naruto shook his head as a second confirmation.

"I just...well...not sure that I can keep this up. I have what Madara is after, you know this right? It's the very thing that Pain sought, the thing you almost gave your life to protect" Naruto said before Hinata quickly responded.

"No, Naruto-kun, I know what they are after but that was not what I was protecting. I was protecting you" Hinata bravely announced as her resolve began to build, and for some reason her stuttering stopped. "What I told you, Naruto-kun, I meant it" she continued as she brought her gaze to look up at the newly blooming, white magnolia flowers.

"I know Hinata. I love the village, as a whole you know? I guess I just...don't really...know what...BAH! Why is this so difficult?" Naruto said throwing his hands behind his back and leaning back on them as he looked into the tree.

Naruto took a few deep breaths and looked over to Hinata but couldn't see her face since her bangs were in her eyes. He leaned back forward and looked into his lap as he rubbed his palm with one of his fingers.

"Hinata, I'm sorry, I guess I just don't know the kind of...love...that you have for me?" he stated but then ended while looking over to ask her for a kind of confirmation. She shook her head, but as she did, a tear dropped from her chin.

"I mean!? Gah, I just...Hinata I'm really sorry...but I just feel like...anyone who associates with me...that I would put them in danger" he said as his voice began to swell with sadness, and for some reason unknown to him his own eyes began to get bleary.

"Hinata what I did scares even me. While I feel like I have some control right now, I know that it is not enough. I don't ever want to put anyone in danger of anything like that ever again, especially...you. You were willing to give your life for me. I don't ever want anyone to ever have to throw away their life for me..." Naruto said, trailing off with words that just seemed to sting her very soul.

"_Does he really not understand?" Hinata thought._

"N-N-Naruto-kun, I was not throwing away my life, I was choosing to fight for the one that I..." Hinata started to explain before she wasn't able to complete the sentence. The emotions just ran wild and took her, taking her into a place she didn't want to be. Tears rolled down her face and she began to hiccup, and she chanced a glance over to Naruto, but to find that he was now standing. He was rubbing his sleeve over his eyes before looking down at her. He offered her his hand. She debated on whether or not to stand since her body was shaking so bad, but she took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.

Naruto wrapped his arms around her and brought her close. She could feel the beat of his heart racing and wet splotches on his jacket. Reluctant at first, she slowly wrapped her hands around the inside of his cloak and around his waist.

"Hinata, I came to tell you I'm leaving for Kumo after I leave here. I'm going back to train with the other Jinchuriki so that I never have a repeat of what happened last time to our village, or to you. I will not have any of my precious people put in danger because of what I am, what I represent. I have to get strong enough to face Sasuke and Madara too, and if I am away from here they won't have any reason to come here" Naruto explained as he pulled away slightly from Hinata.

She was dumbstruck and frozen. _"What do I do? Do I tell__ the Hokage his plans, or would I be betraying his trust in telling his plans to others? How do I convince him stay? What do i-"_

"Goodbye Hinata" Naruto said as he turned around and moved away from her.

She watched frozen in horror as the man she loved began to move further and further away, and she had no idea what to do.

* * *

_Happening at the same time, Hokage's office..._

"So this is her yeah?" Z said as he leaned up against the bookcase while casting a lazy glance over the new arrivals.

The Tsuchikage and his granddaughter, Kurotsuchi, had arrived late in the night as it was only the two of them so night was the preferred time of travel to avoid being sighted. The Tsuchikage had received a letter from Tsunade saying that she would like to invite him and his granddaughter to their village to talk over issues and see the new village as a sign of trust. Tsunade has sent other letters out, some concerning other matters, but the Tsuchikage was surprisingly the first to reply.

"Tsunade what is the meaning of this?" the Tsuchikage asked while throwing a quizzical glare Tsunade's way.

"Onoki, I would like to offer your granddaughter and the Village Hidden in the Rocks something as a token of friendship between our two villages" Tsunade replied, elbows bent on the desk and hands clasped in front of her mouth.

The Tsuchikage crossed his arms and turned to look from Z over to Tsunade. Tsunade stood and took his hard gaze as a sign to move on with it.

"Z is a very capable shinobi, and very expensive as well. He has agreed to train a select group of shinobi through a training program specifically designed fo-"

"Yeah, yeah, anyways your daughter would fit perfectly with the team by the description given to me and it would look good diplomatically I guess" Z said as he got an eye tick from Tsunade for cutting her off.

"Tsunade, whats the deal here? There is some sort of catch or you wouldn't offer something like this" the Tsuchikage bluntly said.

As her blood began to boil Tsunade had to keep herself as calm as possible. _"This old fool, is he really so ignorant of the fact that alliances need to be made in order to beat Madara?"_

"I assure you there is no catch, _Onoki,_ but if you would just see this as an opport-"

"Tsunade, is the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki being trained by this man? If he can keep the Kyuubi's host in line then that assures me a little more this man could train Kurotsuchi efficiently. I know that boy..." Onoki rattled on quickly, Tsunade being cut off yet again as the Tsuchikage talked about security for his granddaughter in a foreign country.

A dramatic drop of temperature happened though, as soon as the Tsuchikage mentioned the Kyuubi. Tsunade slowly turned to face Z, the book in his hand down by his side and frozen solid. The Tsuchikage slowly stopped talking and turned to the source of the cold, as his granddaughter stared eyes wide at Z.

"Do you mean to tell me, _Hokage-sama_," Z said as his voice gained an edge as sharp as a kunai, "that Naruto is in fact the Kyuubi's host?"

Tsunade was frozen in place, almost literally as the cold bore down on her and the rest. She was waiting for an opportunity to bring it up in a way Z would accept it. She had also opened herself to the possibility of Naruto blurting it out in some way during training, but obviously that had yet to happen. As she opened her mouth to speak, Shizune came barreling into the room.

"Apologies Hokage-sama, but reports just came in from one of the side gates that Naruto is trying to leave the village!" Shizune exclaimed.

Tsunade went to run out of the room, worry and dread seizing her mind as she tried to think on why Naruto would leave the village, especially when they had just gotten back and situated again. Z moved to the front blocking the entrance and locked gazes with Tsunade. Tsunade could see a slight hint of a white or silver color coming from behind the dark glasses Z wore.

"I will take care of this, and when I get back, we talk with all the cards on the table" a slightly demanding tone creeping into his voice, but it sounded more like concern coming from Z.

"_He just found out that he is training the Kyuubi's host after I kept it from him, doesn't know my reasons, yet it sounds like hes worried. Just who is this guy? And why does he seem like..."_

Tsunade nodded and Z disappeared quickly as Kakashi joined him in the hall. Z didn't seem to take notice as they quickly made their way towards the gate the reports came from.

"Good one Tsunade, good one" the Tsuchikage commented as he took the seat in front of the Hokage desk and started dozing, while Tsunade blew out heavily, pushing her bangs away from her face as she balled her fists.

* * *

_West gate, Konoha..._

Naruto had tried to sneak past the guards, and he had managed to do so. Only, Inoichi, Ino's father, happened to be on duty managing the barrier when Naruto decided to step across. And everyone in the Barrier Squad knew Naruto's chakra signature thanks to Inochi who developed a way to detect other foreign chakras within a person's system.

Naruto was being restrained by several ANBU black ops when Kakashi and Z came up to the scene. Even with the mask on, Naruto knew who it obviously was as the ANBU commander motioned the other ANBU away from Naruto. Z remained still, but on guard as Naruto righted himself and huffed at the ANBU moving away from him.

"Naruto Uzumaki," Kakashi began as he moved to step in front of Naruto, "please explain why you were trying to leave the Konoha boarders."

Naruto put his hands behind his head and looked away, "Eh, Kak-", before he heard Kakashi clear his throat he started again.

"Well, sir, I wanted to take a training trip outside the walls of Konoha," as Naruto thought, wasn't really a lie, "before everyone dog piled me as if I was going to go fight Madara or something!"

Z stepped forward to stand beside Kakashi, "Oh really?", and at Naruto's nod of confirmation Z threw his head in a motion for others to look in the direction he was motioning to. Hinata was leaning against the giant wall partly hidden by lumber stacks and random materials. It was pretty evident by the tears streaming down her face even from this distance that something was up.

Naruto instantly changed expressions when he saw Hinata, and heard Z give an audible "hmph".

"How about you tell us whats really going on, Naruto?", Kakashi asked, moving up beside Naruto and putting a hand on Naruto's shoulder.

Naruto looked down at the ground for a few moments as if he was gathering his thoughts, but when he looked up he wore an expression of extreme sadness. Kakashi was taken aback at his former pupil's mood and motioned for the ANBU to disperse and for everyone else to move along. After most of the people had cleared the area Naruto sighed and looked out beyond the village walls.

"Kakashi-sensei, I have to get stronger, not just for my own sake but for others. I can't let people place themselves in danger over what I carry inside of me. I have to learn how to harness the power that Killer Bee helped me find, the same power that...my dad and mom died to..." Naruto choked before he could continue and felt a reassuring hand on his other shoulder. Looking over in complete shock, he realized it was Z.

"Naruto, do you honestly think your stubborn Hokage would hire just anybody to train you guys," Z said, still in the same tone as his usual speeches, but a little more upbeat, "I mean come on, am I really that bad?"

Naruto didn't respond, and was really only half listening. Z wasn't exactly someone he felt like trusting, just like how Z didn't really appear to trust anyone himself. Naruto risked a quick look at Hinata to see that she was still paying attention.

"Naruto take a look around," Kakashi said as he motioned with one arm their current view of the village, "you have the greatest support here, we can all help you in some way. You also need to think about just how much it may hurt the others if you were to leave again, especially so soon after you just returned"

Naruto thought about what he had said to Hinata before he left, and instantly regretted everything he had said. _"What was I thinking? That had to have been the stupidest thing...well closest to the stupidest thing I have ever done. What will I say to her, will she talk to me again, will she even come close to me again? What was she really trying to tell me? Blehhhh...why is this all so hard to understand..."_

"Yo, junior, run back to the Hokage and let her know that this thing was just a big misunderstanding, yeah?" Z said, "and wake your friends up while your at it and get them to the training field. I need to get in some nature affinity training in with ya'll before we hit the big stuff"

Both excited at the mention of nature training and a little nervous now at what he was going to tell the Hokage...and eventually Hinata...he set off while yelling out something concerning pervs.

Kakashi glimpsed Hinata who still had tears in her eyes and shook his head while thinking about Naruto.

"You know Kakashi-san, I don't think I'm really cut out for all this hormonal teenage stuff," Z said as he turned around to begin heading back to talk to Tsunade about everything he had previously mentioned. "I think I'll ask the Hokage about switching our roles around, whaddya say?"

Kakashi laughed and disappeared in a swirl of leaves while Z ventured off to get ready for the training session.

* * *

_New Konoha training grounds, late morning..._

"You gotta be kidding me..." Z said to the gathered bunch he was currently getting paid to instruct, "more then half of you have never done any sort of nature affinity training or even know your affinity?"

At most of the blank stares and lack of emotion save for frustration radiating of a few, Z took it that they were being serious. Naruto was kind of confused as to how most of his friends had no idea what their element could be, and now that he thought about it he never even saw Sakura use any elemental jutsu. He was unsure of the new girls Karen and Kurotsuchi, but all they really did was sit there with a emotionless stare while listening to Z rant. Everyone was kind of side tracked at the appearance of the new arrival from the Land of Rock.

"Oh yeah, this is Kurotsuchi. She's from some village hidden in something and all that," Z explained to the group while Kurotsuchi narrowed her eyes at his disrespect for her village. "She will be your partner Rock Lee"

Rock Lee almost looked like he could have been frozen solid if it wasn't unbelievably hot outside.

"_Noooooooo way! This can't be happening! JUST LOOK AT HER! That slender body! That short hair! Those serious eyes! YOSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Rock Lee thought to himself._

"Ahh...yeah...so lets get to it" Z commented as he slowly waved his hands in front of Lee's eyes.

Hinata on the other hand was extremely nervous. Elemental jutsu would be an entirely different style of jutsu then what she had been trained with since she was born, the Gentle Fist. A million and one things kept running through her mind but the number one reoccuring thought contained her father's disapproval of learning anything other then what was taught by the Hyugas. When she came back from her thoughts Z was passing out blank pieces of paper. _"At least Naruto is staying here again...",_ she thought as she glanced over Naruto's way to find him staring off in another direction.

"Ok, everyone this is simple, just surge the paper with some chakra and depending on the reaction you can determine your chakra type. Hurry it up also, we are gonna be behind today since I have to run through basics" Z explained.

Shortly after, he finally had everyone organized with what element they had. Naruto and Ino were wind natured, Tenten and Kiba were fire natured, Choji and Neji with earth, Hinata and Sakura possessed water, leaving Karin with lightning. Z had been briefed by Tsunade on Kurotsuchi's Lava Release which everyone was in awe of, but what he couldn't understand was why Rock Lee's nature paper wouldn't do anything. After looking at Rock Lee try again and again to surge chakra into the paper, Neji ambled up.

"Z-san, Lee has never been able to use any type of ninjutsu. That's why he always uses taijutsu, since it is the only thing he has ever been able to use" Neji explained while looking at Lee.

"I see", Z said while walking over to Lee, "then I have something else"

While some of the rookies were discussing their elements and excitement Z clamped a hand onto Lee's shoulder and whispered something in his year that set the young chunin's eyes ablaze with the "flame of youth".

Naruto had no idea what was going on as he looked on at Z trying to calm Rock Lee down. The rest of rookies seemed to be in the same boat as their gazes shifted when Lee started going crazy. Finally Z managed to guide Lee back over to the main group and began to analyze everything. _"Hmph, convenient to say the least...Kami must __be smiling down on these kids today..."_

"Ok, lets coast into some general principles of nature based chakra and then tomorrow we will get into jutsus" Z said as everyone paired off into their normal pairs to start practicing.

* * *

_3 hours later..._

The rookies were drenched, and it was only noonish. Sweat poured from their brows and over their eyes, and everyone was visibly wet on the exterior from the dampness of their clothes. Z had moved onto training with Lee after he had explained formulating nature chakra and exercises to help increase output and control of the affinity aligned to each of the group. Kurotsuchi paired up with Sakura since Z had been training with Lee, and the majority of the group had made progress. Lee was going to take some work, but in the end he would know it would be well worth it...if it worked.

"Ok everyone lets end it here. Before you leave you need to remember, your nature affinity needs to become second nature. Practice every time you get the chance and I promise you it will yield rewards" Z said as he got ready to leave. _"And of course, something as silly as emotions would come into play and ruin my partner compositions. Oh Hokage-sama, dealing with hormonal teens is not my thing."_

"_Jeez, this guy," _Naruto began a train of thought, _"he doesn't really seem all that special save from that one jutsu he used. I still don't understand why baa-chan had to go and hire this guy". _Naruto averted his gaze to catch Hinata sneaking a glance at him out of the corners of her eyes. Hinata blushed slightly and quickly brought her eyes back to Sakura who had been talking to her. Naruto frowned and looked at everyone packing up to move out. _"And __it's__ only noon..."_

"Oh yeah, everyone remember to pair up and train, we need to get up to training in four person cells as quickly as possible. Last thing before you go, a week from today I want everyone to meet back here at dusk. Later" Z said as he jumped up into the trees to make his way back to Konoha.

Hinata frowned at the mention of the pairs. _"Great...now to train with Kiba...how can the day get any worse?"_

* * *

_New Ichiruka Ramen Stand, noonish..._

Naruto had changed clothes and went straight to the ramen stand. He knew he was going to need something to put him in a good mood for dealing with Ino later. He has just received his miso ramen when Z pulled out the chair next to him. _"Greattttttttt..."_

"One pork ramen please!" Z said quickly while pulling his gloves off. Teuchi gave Z a nod and got to work on the ramen. "I heard you come here all the time, I just don't see how you stomach this stuff every meal", Z casually carried on while he looked around the new restaurant.

"_Really? Who does this guy think he is? He ac__ts like we have been best friends since the start of time!" _Naruto thought to himself as he began to slurp his ramen.

"I'm sure the Hokage told you about where I'll be staying and all that stuff right?" Z asked Naruto.

"Yeah, but if you think for one minute you can just pop up at any time with your freaky late night habits or whatever you've got going on you can just forget it!" Naruto exclaimed agitatedly.

"Oh yeah? Why? You got a girl friend that your bringing over in the middle of the night and don't want me checkin out? Huh?" Z teased Naruto as his ramen was brought to him and he bowed his head to Teuchi.

"SAY WHAT!? You really are a concealed perv!" Naruto yelled out while spewing ramen all over Z as he turned, "And what would you know about girls anyway!?"

The chill that swept past Naruto and Z was barely noticeable but Z spoke before Naruto could question him.

"Heh, you have a point there youngin" Z said in a sad tone while glancing back at his ramen, "Anyways whos the hot Hyuga babe sitting down over there?" Z commented while pointing away towards Naruto's other side.

"Where?" Naruto snapped his neck around to look but didn't see anyone. He slowly turned to Z about say something but noticed Z repositioning his face mask. Naruto looked down and went wide-eyed at the ramen-less bowl before Z.

"Thanks a lot jii-san, was great!" Z said as he tossed money onto the counter and walked away, "later on punk"

"Stop addressing me like im a kid you concealed perv! I'm almost as old as you!" Naruto yelled after Z as he watched him jump up and out of sight. Naruto turned back around to tend to his ramen before he realized what time it was. He gulped down his ramen as he thought about the possibilities of Ino's wrath and went to pull out money before Teuchi stopped him.

"Don't worry about it Naruto, seems like the masked guy that came in left enough for the both of you" Teuchi said as he grabbed the empty ramen bowls.

"_Meh, hes not TOO bad I guess..."_

* * *

_Shimogakure (Village Hidden in the Frost), approaching nightfall..._

A few ninja concealed in cloaks stepped over bodies as they made their way over to the strange outcropping in a nearby tree. As the walked, the moonlight danced off their forehead protectors, identifying them as Konoha and Kiri (Hidden Mist Village) ninja. Behind one of the trees stood a cowardly survivor of the massacre. His first intent was to run, but he knew that their country could be invaded, and his family could be harmed. So he turned and ran, and he knew he would run with everything he had in order to let his country know of this preemptive attack from Konoha and Kiri.

"It's done, go let him know!" the lead Konoha ninja exclaimed as the black shadow disappeared into the tree after mentioning to the rest of attacking ninja to clean up. As the moonlight shifted back through the trees though, the Konoha and Kiri ninja were gone, and in their place were white Zetsu formations. As they looked down at the bloodied corpses of ninja representing the Land of Frost, the Zetsu clones smiled and licked their lips.

* * *

_Shimogakure, inside the Daimyo's guest quarters..._

"It's done, as you requested" Black Zetsu stated as he rose his head above floor level to look at Madara. Madara was over at the window sill without his mask on, and it looked like he was holding something in his left hand, which he hastily put away.

"Very good" Madara replied, "and I am hoping that he let at least one of the shinobi live, right?"

"Yes, he left one. I give him around 10 minutes or so" Black Zetsu responded as he began to phase back into the ground.

"Excellent. Fetch Tomatsu. We will need to construct a little test of strength. Establish a route through Yugakure no sato (the Hidden Hot Springs Village) since the Land of Fire is locked down tight. We will make the move in a few days depending on how things go here tonight" Madara instructed to the disappearing Black Zetsu. Once Black Zetsu was gone, Madara clenched his right hand intensely.

"_They will pay for what happened."_

* * *

_Konoha 1 week later, later afternoon, Hokage's office..._

Tsunade was pacing back and forth near the window while occasionally grabbing a look out over reconstruction efforts. It seemed like Konoha was never destined to grab a break, always being targeted for some conflict. She knew she was getting ready to take a huge risk, especially with so many unknowns hanging about. _"It has to be done though, if this goes unchecked, it will progress even further."_

Shizune knocked and the Hokage told her to enter. While the space inside the office had been expanded slightly, it was about to be slammed. Naruto, Sakura, and the rest of the ninja being included in the new training program came through the door, and instead of standing in their squads they stood next to their partner, something that caught Tsunade slightly off guard.

Naruto had been at the ramen stand when Sakura stumbled by to let him know they were being summoned by the kage. He knew they were all suppose to meet tonight with Z, for what exactly he nor anybody else knew. He glanced around the room and realized the fox masked Anbu, who had to be Kakashi, was standing next to someone of slightly smaller stature with a plain mask with few markings randomly splashed over the surface.

As he recalled the past week to think of anything that may be the cause of the summons, he found himself going through his and Ino's training, as well as the training of those that practiced around the same time he did. Not sure if by coincidence or not, but Kiba and Hinata seemed to get to the new training grounds nearly at the same time as he and Ino. It was odd, because they were both extreme melee fighters with detection abilities, yet they didn't seem to interfere with each other and actually worked quite well with one another. He had to admit, he was jealous, either because he was watching Kiba train with Hinata or it was because his training with Ino had been going terribly. It just seemed impossible to help her with her nature training since all they seemed to be able to do while on the subject is fight. He really had to dial it back when training, and while he never would have thought about using his new Nine-Tailed Fox enhanced form, he couldn't even use Sage Mode or Ino simply could not keep up. Her ability to analyze a fight and carefully plan out a strategy though was certainly better than his, which was usually just take it to the enemy. Other than that though, they did "ok".

Tsunade stopped and faced them, and realized Z was nowhere to be seen. As she began to open her mouth, Sakura mentioned that he would be here shortly. _"Well, lets get started anyways..."_

"As you all know, the alliance between the 5 great nations is currently progressing but at a very slow pace. We need to do whatever is necessary to help move the trust and reliance of others along in a positive direction" Tsunade explained. At the end of the explanation Z landed on the roof outside the window and moved inside next to Kakashi. Tsunade had gotten so used to it from Naruto and Kakashi abusing it in the past that she never missed a beat and kept explaining.

"Reports came in 2 days ago that nearly a full recon squad of ninja from the Village Hidden in the Frost were murdered along the borders of the Hot Springs Country. There was only a single survivor of the group and he made it back to report to the Daimyou. He claims that ninja from Konoha and Kiri (Hidden Mist Village) were behind the killing, and that he has the proof to back that claim."

Outrage and confusion poured from the young shinobi, which was silenced by a heavy hand from the Hokage on her desk. She cleared her throat and glanced among the young shinobi. _"This is going to hurt me sending him out there, but he isn't a kid anymore, and he has shown me that there is no reason to doubt him"_

"The Daimyou was ready to declare war on the Leaf and Kiri, but thankfully we managed to get a messenger bird through to deliver the message that a peace liaison had been dispatched to get a detailed report of events" she carried on, and braced herself with a slight glance to Z's direction. She knew that he hadn't had much time to train the group, and that he may want to delay the trip.

"However for some reason, a group of ninja from Shimo (Hidden Frost Village) of unknown numbers have been reported crossing the Hot Springs Country border a day or so ago, with a bearing we can only guess is Kiri. We want to you all in to try to intercept and try to reason with the Shimo force and if that fails I want you all to help reinforce the Kiri border to display not only our good will to Kiri, but those that represent the other nations as well. That includes you Kurotsuchi" Tsunade explained and received a nod from the young Iwa (Hidden Rock Country) kunoichi.

Naruto was about to scream with joy at actually getting to do something else besides the lame training with Ino, but Z had already moved forward.

"Absolutely not. Send someone else's team. You hired me to train these ninja, and in order to do so they must be alive. They aren't ready to take on a mission like this on so little training time, and to top it off they will be facing off against ninja who will probably possess a full elemental advantage with the close proximity to water as well as ice ninjutsu. We also have no idea how many of them there are. This is totally ridiculous _Hokage-same" _Z rebutted in quick fashion.

Tsunade picked up on the defiance to the mission immediately, but it was the rookies that seemed the most...startled by the reaction that Z illustrated.

Naruto immediately lashed out, and began to talk about how Z doesn't ever trust them to do anything, to which Z began to argue that it wasn't just about Naruto, and more about how the group would function as a whole. The argument began to get extremely heated as more of the team became involved in the notion of continuing with the mission, particularly Rock Lee and Kiba. Tsunade noticed the temperature in the room began to drop and knew that this couldn't progress any further or she would risk the loss of their trainer. She began to reconsider who she could send but everyone else was needed in either the rebuilding of the village, out on missions, or needed for village security.

"Ano..."

Everything stopped, and the sounds of bugs of the night could be heard clearly as everyone turned to the voice that began to speak.

"Z-sensei, is it really true that you don't trust us enough to be able to complete the mission, or do you really think that its the lack of training?" Hinata asked very seriously. "Because while you may be new to the group, we have all been friends for a long time. I-I-I just think that you should trust in both us and your t-t-training, because even the little bit that you have given us will go a long way."

Z relaxed his posture somewhat and turned around to face out the window, and everyone stood dumbstruck at the serious question asked by one of their least confrontational shinobi in the village.

"Hokage-sama, you know this isn't what we agreed to. This is totally against wh-" Z began to reply till he heard the door latch closed at the front of the room. Everyone turned to identify who the new member to the meeting was, but the spikey, black ponytail and hint of cigarette smoke gave the identity away.

"Except, the reason is neither trust, nor training. Is it Z-san? Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear while I waited" came the familiar voice of one of the original Rookie 12.

"Shikamaru!" was exclaimed from most of the group, but before greetings were exchanged Shikamaru walked to to stand in front of the Hokage's desk. The other rookies were trying to figure out exactly what exactly Shikamaru may have meant, but before they could Z was already moving towards the window.

"I can tell that those things Hinata mentioned may be factors in your defiance to leave, but its obvious that something else is bothering you. Looking at you fidget and the fact that the cold aura I felt while waiting completely stopped hitting me, I would gue-"

"Not another word"

Everyone tensed, because no one had ever heard Z sound so serious. It almost sounded threatening, and even Kakashi had one finger through a loop of one of his kunai.

"We leave tonight at midnight. We do this my way or not at all." Z claimed as he stopped right beside the Hokage. As she nodded, he disappeared in a swirl of frost, and Naruto and a few others began to rejoice at the confirmation of the mission. As commotion arose concerning Shikamaru's arrival and the new mission, the Hokage shooed them out of the office. As the door closed, Kakashi and the other masked man came to stand in front of the desk.

"You know, that was extremely foolish. Z could have walked out completely. You just dropped Naruto being the Kyuubi's host on him not too long ago as well. If it wasn't for Shikamaru entering, your gamble may not have worked Hokage-sama" Kakashi claimed.

Tsunade sat down and leaned back, smiling softly as she recited the exact words she had told Jiraiya once upon a time, "Luck is not the only determinate in the gamble, and that sometimes fate will dictate the roll of the dice in its place"

* * *

_Streets of Konoha..._

Naruto and the team began to frantically gather everything they needed for the mission. Everyone had decided that they would all eat with Shikamaru at Chouji's new favorite BBQ pit to discuss everything that had transpired between Suna (Village of Wind) and Konoha.

But as he packed his bag, Naruto knew this was his big chance...

His big chance to show everyone that he didn't need a guard, or special treatment, or some new lousy sensei to train him. He thought about Hinata, and what she had told him while at the compound. Naruto knew that this mission may just be an opportunity for him to seek some clarification on just what exactly she was trying to tell him, and maybe to try and find out what exactly he may need to be trying to tell her...

* * *

_Hyuuga Compound..._

"I don't like this at all, Hinata" the head of the Hyuga clan said as he stood at the door way to Hinata's room. But Hinata was barely listening as she hastily put all of her gathered necessities in a backpack and zipped it up.

"It will be okay Otousan," Hinata replied, "we have a really strong team and a pretty strong teacher-"

"Who I really don't trust, Hinata," Hiashi quickly stated, "and to top it off we are sending ninja who aren't even Konoha shinobi along with you to serve as your 'teammates'. I'm going to head to the Hokage and talk to her about this little mission as well as this nonsensical training"

Hinata frowned, but her father did have a point. She really wanted to go and try to get back out into the world again, doing missions, and the like. But she knew the importance of this mission, and she knew that enough of her friends were there to make sure if anything out of place happened, they would have each others backs.

"Otousan, please, this is necessary. I really want to help and so does everyone else. We have to try and further the relations between the countries currently trying to establish an alliance. You should know this as well, since you have to h-h-help maintain the alliance with the other major clans" she managed to spill out, while surprising herself with minimal stuttering.

Hiashi looked up and quickly thought about the accuracy of that statement that his daughter brought to his attention, and admired her insight. He heaved a sigh of defeat and moved out of the middle of the walkway allowing Hinata to walk by. She bowed her head and said a quick farewell as she ran out of her room. He looked down the hall to see Neji looking directly at him.

Hiashi nodded and Neji understood, as he always did. They passed each other and without a second glance as Neji and Hinata quickly moved to the BBQ pit.

As they neared the restaurant, Hinata could see most of the people had already gathered. They walked in and she and Neji sat down at the end next to Ino and Shikamaru. Kurotsuchi and Karin were even there, but they looked only interested in Shikamaru's talks of Suna's village and how the current state of affairs was over in that part of the ninja world. They did occasionally look at Naruto, Kiba, and Chouji frantically fighting with their chopsticks over the pieces of meat on the grill, but just shook their heads or scowled.

"Anyways, I heard what's going on with your mission, sounds kinda bothersome" Shikamaru slouched back in his seat as he finished the last piece of bbq. Ino gritted her teeth at his usual lazy behavior but most of the laughed and smiled.

"It does hold great importance though," Shikamaru continued on, "Shimo obviously thinks that we helped Kiri kill that recon of Shimo shinobi. We may have halted them directly attacking us, but it's only a matter of time before they turn their attention on us for revenge. We have zero way to prove our innocence and if you all intercept them before they get to Kiri and you can't reason with them, things will go south quickly"

"What do you mean Shikamaru? We will be in position to help Kiri and will have more backup" Chouji commented.

"Well, that's not exactly what I mean. The Land of Frost isn't a big nation like the Land of Fire, but they possess a fair amount of ninja all the same, and it's rumoured they have a high population that are innately tuned to ice ninjutsu," Shikamaru explained.

"And if they are being attacked, the other smaller nations will see us as threat and may ally with the other smaller nations with the fear of invasion," Neji finished while looking over the table with his hands clasped together on the table.

"Pretty much. Anyways, I need to head back and get some sleep. Been traveling all day and dealing with that troublesome blonde haired gypsy in Suna is a major drag. Good luck," Shikamaru commented nonchalantly as Neji got up to let him out while the group chuckled at the Temari reference. He waved to the group and everyone chorused their goodbyes as he left the restaurant.

The group talked a little more before getting up to pay the bill and leave. They had around an hour before they needed to meet for the mission start.

To everyone's surprise, Chouji and Tenten said they were going ahead to the field for some light sparing. Hinata looked over to Neji and Rocklee, who both looked kind of down at the sight of their teammate leaving to go train without them. Neji lifted his head and looked over to Karin, who just threw her nose into the air and marched off in the direction opposite the training fields. Neji sighed and looked back to the group.

"You guys have no idea how lucky you are," Neji solemnly said as he began to trod off, "I'm going to go practice some earth ninj-"

SLAM!

Neji nearly flipped over from something colliding with his back. As he quickly turned around to Lee recoiling from hitting Neji across the back a little too roughly.

"I would train with you, my rival, but alas I must train with my dead Kurot-" Lee started to say.

"No, I'm leaving. Need to find Z to talk to him about something anyways," Kurotsuchi said as she walked off.

Lee's mouth dropped open and Neji chuckled while tugging on his shoulder to get Lee to go train.

Hinata had been hanging in the back of the group standing kind of close to Sakura and Ino as they started up a conversation and began to move off in the direction of Ino's house. She noticed Kiba had been intentionally hanging back while Naruto just stood off to the side still consumed in thought. She noticed Kiba approaching her but right before he could get in arm's reach Naruto shook himself out of his thoughts, and turned in her direction.

Their eyes met and she held his gaze for what seemed like an eternity, one in which she wouldn't mind if it stretched on forever. _"...as if..." she thought. _

"Hinata, uh...would you mind if we talked...er...I mean sparred for a little while before we head out for the mission?" Naruto stammered, changing his choice of words after catching Kiba's gaze.

"Ano...o-okay N-Naruto-kun" she barely managed to get out as a million and one thoughts raced through her mind.

She moved to stand beside Naruto. Together they walked off in the direction of the training fields, to Kiba's displeasure. Kiba exhaled and looked down at Akamaru.

"Looks like it's just us till midnight then Akamaru"

Akamaru replied with a loud howl as he and Kiba walked deeper into Konoha to stroll the streets and take a look at the reconstruction progress before the mission began.

* * *

_Paths to the old training grounds..._

They were walking pretty slow as they made their way through the paths to the old training grounds. Hinata had been looking down along the ground while Naruto looked like he was struggling with what to say exactly. They rounded the last little bend in the path before they caught sight off the old training posts that they would beat up on during training sessions. Naruto recalled memories form his past, like when he had been tied to the middle post while Sakura and Sasuke fed him when they had just turned Genin, the long nights beating the posts senseless, when Hinata was hiding behind the post before the Chunin Exams...

"_Umm...when you cheered me on, I felt like I became stronger, and after the preliminary rounds I started to like myself a little bit more..." Hinata said quietly. "To other people It may not seem like I really changed, but I...felt like I was to change. It was thanks to you Naruto..."_

"_I may appear strong," Naruto replied sadly, "But that's all because I act tough since I'm so mad all the time from failing"_

"_That's not true Naruto, even when you always fail" Hinata responded with a little more confidence, "In my eyes you're a proud failure and when I look at you I get this really strong feeling in my heart because I realize that you're not perfect"_

"_Because you fail, you have the strength to get back up, and I believe that is what true strnegth really is. I-I think you are an incredibly strong person, Naruto-kun..." _

Naruto came out of his thoughts, and as he took his eyes off the ground and looked forward, he realized he was standing right in front of the same post that Hinata told him those words so long ago. _"What true strength really is...hmmm..."_

He must have been standing there for a few minutes because when he moved forward the grass stayed depressed in the shape of his shoe. He put his hand up on the post and realized that Hinata was leaning with her back against the post looking out over the area that was now the new training area.

He walked around the post and sat down on the grass next to where Hinata was standing.

"True strength," Naruto said as he gathered his thoughts into what he wanted to say, "so long ago you told me what that was Hinata. I really think...I lost sight of what my true strength was"

Hinata was startled at the mention of their past meeting here and blushed a little. She bent her knees and moved down to sit on the grass with her back still up against the post. She could remember it like it was yesterday, she always could when it involved him...

"I'm so worried about making sure that I don't fall down again, that I lose sight of everything around me that allows me to become truly strong. My friends that help pull be back to my feet, the civilians that I want to protect, my senseis that teach me when I have done something wrong..." Naruto said.

"Even, Z-sensei?" Hinata asked.

"Hell no! All that concealed perv does is get on my nerves. Although I really hope he can teach us some more nature affinity training." Naruto exclaimed.

She giggled and looked over to see a contemplative look on his face. She brought her knees to her chest and looped her arms around her knees.

"But...what I really want to say Hinata...is I'm sorry for everything I told you earlier about wanting to leave the village to get stronger" Naruto said slowly in an apologetic tone.

She sat there quietly for a short while taking everything in, and while it was frustrating that he didn't exactly feel the same way about her, she realized even more why she admired him. She relaxed a little and took a deep breath.

"I-It hurt when you told me everything at the compound," Hinata said while noticing a small flinch from Naruto, "but I can understand your desire to become stronger, b-because I feel the same way Naruto-kun. You make me want to find that real strength, and sometimes it becomes a little hard to see what exactly you are becoming strong for when you dedicate yourself to it too much."

Naruto displayed a small, lopsided smile, and turned to look at her. It was hard for her, but Hinata managed to lock eyes very briefly with Naruto.

"What do you say, we start on a new page from here on out then? Well, if its ok with you I mean..." Naruto replied while looking to her for confirmation.

"Okay, N-Naruto-kun" she replied, with possibly the biggest grin that she ever worn since he left to train with Jiraiya years ago. _"Lets find that true strength with everyone we have, Naruto-kun" She thought to herself silently. "I may get hurt again, but its a risk I'm willing to take..." _

"Alright!" Naruto exclaimed while standing up quickly and fist pumped the air, "What's that thing Bushy Brows says? Oh yeah! YOSHHH! On to a new start!"

As he yelled, a deathly silence filled the area, before a crashing of branches and what sounded like the cracking of trees filled the area to their left.

"ooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!" could be heard as a green blur flashed from the top of a tree down a few minutes later to the ground where Naruto had just quickly sidestepped out of the way.

"I heard the call of youth echo to me from far away! Naruto does the burning desire to light your flames of youth call out to you?!" Lee said as he assumed his traditional taijutsu pose, ready to strike.

Neji suddenly appeared at the tree line, clearly dead out of breath from all the heavy heaving he was doing.

"Ehhh...Lee-san...*huff* ...lets just head to the mission area and wait for Z-san" Neji managed to get out.

"Yeah, what Neji said!" Naruto exclaimed while looking to get out of the area as soon as possible, "lets go everyone!"

* * *

_New Training Grounds, Konoha, 1 minute till Midnight..._

Everyone was there except Z. They had begun to talk amongst themselves and a few of them thought that Z may have bailed because he hadn't gotten his way back in the Hokage's office. But sure enough, as the tones of a clock back in Konoha rang out midnight, Z appeared from out a shadow of a nearby tree.

It really startled everyone, even Karin who was pretty aware of her surroundings and could detect nearly everyone's chakra from a long distance. As Z walked up, he clearly wasn't in the mood to talk and everyone quieted down as they readied themselves mentally for whatever could be coming. They were all in unfamiliar territory, with a completely new sensei, completely new fighting styles, and completely new techniques to try. This had the potential to go terribly wrong...

"Well lets go, everyone stay on me at all time, I'll explain traveling formation as we go and battle scenarios on the fly, since you all thought it was be a great idea to go into battle first and learn later," Z said bluntly. They rookies all looked disgruntled, but they followed Z out of the landing and up into the trees leading to the newly constructed main gate of Konoha.

As they all landed and walked through the gate, Z came to the edge of the forest outside the gate and stopped. He took a big breath, bit his thumb, and quickly rattled through seals for a summoning jutsu. At the completion, an owl appeared on his shoulder.

"What are they saying Kojo?" Z asked.

"You're behind. You will have to head north hard for four hours, then head east and catch the tailwind" the owl explained, "And why is it so hot here?"

"Tell the rest to monitor their activity and to keep you informed, we will catch them before they hit the Kiri border," Z said as the owl flew off his shoulder and into the night.

"You heard him, we are behind. Lets go" Z said as he instantly ascended into the trees and was quickly followed by the rest of the team. _"Oh Kami, please oh please let this mission go as uneventful as possible"_

* * *

A/N: Well, wow. Took me long enough for sure, and for that I apologize. I re-wrote the first 9 pages probably 3 times, not b/c I didn't like the direction of the content (I wanted reassure the audience he wouldn't be pulling a runaway to get back to Bee for training). Also, please keep in mind, they are in their teens. They are ninja who are laying their lives on the line to fight for their nation. I would imagine, everyone single one of them is socially awkward in some way or another, and they don't really have any idea what they are feeling. I tried to write the conversations and dialogue from their age perspectives (it really hasn't been all that long for myself since that age, but I'm surely not a ninja with a dream to become the leader of a nation :p). Anyways, classes have been hell, nursing school has to honestly be the biggest struggle of my life and it has consumed my time from sun up to sun down nearly every single day not named Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Summer Break. BUT, I have realized how much I enjoy writing and how big of a stress reliever it is to write this stuff (especially since my social life is non-existent). Anyways, let me know what ya'll think. Next Chapter, "Shimo Confrontation!"


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